The ‘Missing Person’ Bachelorette ‘Kept the Tags on’ & Returned Dresses

Getty Bekah Martinez.

CLARIFICATION: The original version of this post indicated that Bekah Martinez admitted to committing fraud. In fact, Heavy found no indication that any authorities alleged fraud. The post has been edited to reflect that.

Bekah Martinez is most widely known as the “Bachelor” contestant whose family reported her missing shortly after Arie Luyendyk Jr.’s season stopped filming. Martinez told Us Weekly in a May 2021 article, “Someone recognized me from The Bachelor and the story BLEW UP. Like, seriously … blew up. It went international. But the facts were all f***** up. Some people thought I lied to my mom and told her I was on a weed farm when I was really on The Bachelor??”

Martinez is also known as being the youngest bachelorette on season 22, and one of the youngest in the entire franchise. This was particularly relevant considering that Luyendyk was 36 at the time, while Martinez was only 22.

In a June TikTok video, Martinez shared with viewers how she coped with some of the expenses related to being on the show.

Martinez Makes a Confession

In a June 30 TikTok video, Martinez admitted she returned dresses she had worn on the show during her season of “The Bachelor.” She described how many contestants shell out thousands of dollars for the dresses they wear on the show, but said she, like many others, simply couldn’t afford to do that. She was working as a nanny at the time and was able to borrow a few items from the family who employed her, she said.

“Anything else that I needed, I went to Nordstrom Rack, and I just kept the tags on,” she explained in the TikTok video. “And then I returned it when I got back because I did not have that kind of money to spend.”

The now-blonde mother of two has moved on from her 2018 “Bachelor” experience but continues to answer questions from fans on TikTok. Her account is loaded with viewer inquiries, like the one she answered for the video discussed here, which was, “How much money do women spend on clothes for the bachelor?”

Martinez Says She Was Never ‘Missing’

According to E! News, Martinez explained in a 2021 Instagram Story that she was never really missing, despite her family’s report. The outlet called it a “bizarre situation,” reporting that Martinez “was in need of some quick cash” after leaving “The Bachelor” and had “joined a new friend to go work on a weed farm for a few weeks.”

“the girl I was with got kicked off the farm and I had been using her phone to stay in contact with my parents bc it was the only one that had service,” Bekah wrote, according to the outlet. “she got mad i wouldn’t leave with her when she got kicked out so she texted my mom that I was being held hostage [by] meth heads with knives and then stopped replying.”

E! News reported that Martinez’s family filed the missing person report just before she left the farm to “find better cell service” and was able to contact them.

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