THE LOVE PRODUCER

A veteran reality TV producer details her tumultuous tenure working on The Bachelor.

With more than two decades of behind-the-scenes television production work under her belt, LaPlaca candidly admits to sacrificing her own search for love in favor of guiding others. In delightfully conversational prose, she chronicles her boy-crazy early years in rural Connecticut spent “dreaming about princes, faraway lands, and my happily ever after,” enduring mismatched crushes and a few early love affairs. Career motivations soon took center stage, and a crew position at the VMA Awards made “the wild world of creating TV” a perfect fit. After several production assistant jobs, LaPlaca joined The Bachelor franchise in 2014 as a date producer. The author shares lots of insider details about the raw and messy inner workings of the franchise, including chapters on her alleged affair with United airline pilot Peter Weber, a Bachelor contestant on season 24. The author divulges that while encouraging Weber to open up about himself to her (and the contestants) as his show producer, the pair instantly “clicked on a personal level,” and as the weeks progressed, their connection became complicated as LaPlaca shared more than her professional insights with Weber. Stepping back, she then experienced a soul-searching moment in her late 30s, when she began to critically view her life, her alignment with The Bachelor, and the general direction her career and her own stagnant search for love were going. Resurfacing from that self-assessment, the author made some hard decisions, one being to quit the show in 2020 and refocus her energies in a more personal direction. She writes that after quitting, while she still carried strong feelings for Weber and despite having a boyfriend at the time, she declined to act on her attraction when the pair reunited months later. Acknowledging that in matters of love, “when you step into the unknown and lead with your heart, true transformation begins,” LaPlaca’s own love story is just beginning to unfold.

A glossy glimpse into the business and personal lives of a television show creator.