Despite shaky start, St Catharines woman quickly becomes a fan favourite on Bachelor In Paradise Canada
Published October 20, 2021 at 12:37 pm
After a shaky start, St Catharines resident Lisa Mancini has quickly become a fan favourite on the inaugural season of the TV show, “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”
The question now is: will she survive the first rose ceremony?
It became readily apparent that Mancini, the fourth contestant to hit the beach in the northern Ontario campsite grounds dubbed “Camp Paradise” when the show debuted October 10, was destined to be the quirky, offbeat one.
For starters, she’s a professional cosplay artist, meaning as she said on the show, “I get paid to act like every day is Halloween and I could be happier.” Cosplay means dressing up as superheroes and other fantasy figures such as Daenerys Targaryen from “Game of Thrones” .
Aside from that, she owns two pet squirrels and is riddled with relationship insecurities, something both the show’s producers and viewers alike love to watch. (The reason for these insecurities become readily apparent in Episode Two.)
To top it off, she’s the shortest person there at 5-foot-2. Even the other women tower over her. She came onto the beach in the debut wearing six-inch heels which she refused to take off because she said if she loses her height, she loses her power.
As it tends to be the case on any of these Bachelor-Bachelorette shows, either American or Canadian, all the contestants, women and men alike, are ridiculously attractive, Mancini included.
The cast is a mix of Americans and Canadians at the moment, though weighted more on the Canuck side. That said, while the setting in a northern camp is a far cry from the American version, set in sunny, often steamy Mexico, the American contestants seemed to love the cottage-type setting.
But in the first episode, other contestants found themselves trying to quell Mancini’s very vocal fears that she was “too pure, too honest” to deal with potential deceitful men.
Mancini herself expressed tearfully, “I literally have so much time to create conspiracy theories in my head. Waiting to find out who’s the villain. You know there’s going to be people who are not genuine at all.”
She continued to rail on like that throughout the episode, making her debut a shaky one, indeed. However, it became readily apparent in Episode Two why. An actor from Toronto, David, joined the cast and it turned out he and Mancini had previously had a relationship a few years ago.
Or at least, she thought so. It was revealed that after a handful of dates, the pair went off together to an adult day camp for a romantic rendezvous.
Once there, he apparently ghosted her, taking off to meet other women. Suddenly, the balance of the cast, as well as the viewers, knew where her insecurities were coming from as she said she hadn’t dated since then.
The other contestants became somewhat contemptuous towards him, noting that he waited three years to apologize to her and on TV, no less.
However, as Episode Three approaches, Mancini finds herself as one of two women not coupled up. One of them will stay based on receiving a rose from, you guessed it, David.
Bachelor in Paradise Canada, which has already been filmed in its entirety, airs every Sunday night on CityTV at 8 pm
(Photos of Lisa Mancini courtesy of Good Human Productions)