The Ultimatum creator explains the strange reason he let two couples quit the show

Season three of The Ultimatum has already brought the DRAMA, and two couples have already walked out of the experiment. Vanessa has already spoken out about why she decided to quit The Ultimatum, but the show’s creator, Chris Coelen, has also given some details about what really went down the night four contestants left the show.

The Ultimatum revolves around six couples who are divided between marriage or just splitting up, with one wanting to get engaged and the other being unsure. And they both thought they’d save their relationship by appearing on a Netflix reality TV show. Love it!

Chris’s reaction to finding out two couples were quitting The Ultimatum

via Netflix

In an interview with People, Chris firstly explained what was going through his mind when he found out two couples were quitting. He firstly said he always learnt to “expect the unexpected.”

“This was the first time on the Marry or Move Onversion we had gotten through to The Choice without someone leaving,” he said. “We had two couples leave in the first season at The Choice. We had one couple leave in the second season before The Choice. Here, we got through The Choice, and I went, ‘oh, my gosh, wow. Everyone has made their choice, and they’re in the trial marriages, and let’s see what happens.’ And then nope, that was not to be. You truly never know.”

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However, he did have an issue with the fallout that was left for the other participants on the show. “Seeing it through the lens of the other participants, I can certainly see why it would make the other participants upset, or frustrated, or betrayed, even. But we are always supportive of people’s choices.”

Chris highlighted the most important part of the show which for him is “what happens inside of the experience.”

“And then as a person and as a producer, it’s supporting whatever choices people decide to make.” Sounds like Chris was unbothered by the outcome.

Chris didn’t even bother to try and convince them to stay

It’s very strange that Chris was happy to let four contestants walk out of the set, but he had a good reason as to why. “I don’t ever try to convince anybody to do anything that they don’t want to do.”

However, he did say he reached out to both of the couples: “Micah did not get on the phone with me, but I did speak to Dave, Vanessa and Chanel and just [asked], ‘what are you thinking? What are you doing?’ It was clear that they did not want to participate in the experience, and they wanted to leave. I don’t even know if they completely figured out the why of it all, but that was the choice they wanted to make. And so we were 100 per cent supportive of whatever they wanted to do.”

He didn’t even want to step in when Nick was begging on Sandy’s door and wouldn’t leave

via Netflix

Chris defended his crew’s decision not to be “always filming 24/7.”

“We always have a line to them, but they are living their lives. And in this particular program, we do have mounted cameras but we’re not obviously in their apartment with them or at their door 24/7. And so we are, every single day, very conscious of making sure that we are connected to them or checking in with them. We’re apprised to everything that’s going on with them to the extent that they tell us. I think people are aware enough of that, that if they ever feel like they need something, that they know to reach out to us.”

Did Chris think the season would have been stronger if the two couples had stayed?

“There’s no telling what would have happened or whether things would have turned out differently if they had stayed. Nobody knows that, and there’s no way to be able to tell that.

“So would it have been a different experience? Certainly for all of them, to be honest, for the four people that left as well as for Nick and Mariah. It would have affected Sandy in a way. Yeah, unquestionably, it would have been different. Would that make it stronger or weaker? Nobody knows. That’s life, things happen.”

He did say he would try to stop it from happening again in the future

Chris did say he would “really try” to stop people from leaving in the future, and noted that it’s the “third season that people have left.”

“There’s no telling how people are going to react in any circumstance. There are some times where maybe they expect a certain thing to happen, but then if they see something else unfolding before their eyes, sometimes they get nervous. And I think that’s probably a big part of it, is people get nervous, and then they don’t want to see it through. I think that’s what happened with Nate in season 1, I think that that’s what happened with Lisa in season 2, and I think there’s a little bit of that that happened in this season.”

It may be hard on the people in the experiment, but boy does it make for entertaining TV.