Entertainment

Bekah From 'The Bachelor' Was Recently Listed As A Missing Person & Um, What???

by Stephanie Downs
ABC

Get ready for some truly wild news, Bachelor fans. Bekah M. was recently on missing persons list in Humboldt County, California, as reported by the North Coast Journal. The contestant was only confirmed to not be missing once one of North Coast Journal's readers commented on a previous Missing Persons report from the publication that was published on Facebook and said that she's been appearing on The Bachelor (supervising producer: Deborah Read) as of late. The listing for Bekah is still available on the website for the state attorney general.

UPDATE: The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office confirmed to Bustle that Bekah was on the Missing Persons list up until Feb. 1, 2018. While her mother made contact with Bekah on Nov. 18, 2017 and informed the Sheriff's Office of this on Dec. 12 via email, the office requires the missing person to make direct contact with the investigators, in order to confirm their well-being. Because they had not spoken to Bekah at that time, she remained on the list up until she returned the deputy's call on Feb. 1.

EARLIER: Bustle reached out to ABC and to the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office for comment, but did not receive any responses at the time of publication.

According to North Coast Journal's report, Bekah was on Humboldt County's missing persons list up until only recently. In their cover story for the week (which was published on Feb. 1), the publication asked if readers knew of any of the 35 people listed as missing. One reader pointed out that one woman pictured resembled the very Bekah who is currently on this season of The Bachelor. The publication then went on to note that the officer who took the missing persons report spoke to the contestant after this was pointed out and they subsequently removed her from the list.

Bekah's mother first reported her as missing on Nov. 18, after she hadn't heard from her since Nov. 12, per North Coast Journal's article. According to Public Information Officer Samantha Karges, the Bachelor contestant moved to Humboldt County (from her native Fresno, California) to work on a marijuana farm but hadn't contacted her mother in days.

The good thing about this whole situation is that the reality contestant is OK and not missing. The article stated that Bekah was active on social media throughout the days that she was reported missing. And she's indeed been active on Instagram and Twitter following the original missing persons report on Nov. 18. Also, she's since appeared on the ABC series — she posted a tweet stating that she was on The Bachelor at the time — and has been especially active on Instagram and Twitter since the season premiere.

In response to the report, Bekah commented on Twitter and managed to make a joke about the whole situation. She jokingly stated to her "MOM" that contestants do not get "cell service" on The Bachelor. She also took the case in stride and joked around about her driver's license photo, in a follow-up tweet.

This missing persons report indeed aligns with Bekah's time on The Bachelor. It would just be unclear as to why the contestant's mother didn't get the memo that her daughter was on the show at the time. It's typical that contestants on the program don't have access to their cell phones or even the outside world (such as access to the internet, news coverage, etc.). So, Bekah's mother probably wouldn't be able to contact her if she was still on the program.

This entire situation brings up an even more interesting point relating back to this season of The Bachelor. If Bekah was reported as "missing" during this point and, like the she implies by her tweet, she was on the show at the time, it stands to reason that she makes it pretty far into the competition. The period of time that she was first reported as being missing (on Nov. 18) would align with when the season would be wrapping up its filming schedule. According to Insider, the season began filming on Sept. 20. If the season filmed for around nine weeks, as is typical for a season of the show, the finale would have been filmed around Nov. 22, which almost aligns with when the contestant was reported as missing.

So, could viewers expect the 22-year-old in the finale of the series or even close to it? There's no way to know for sure until The Bachelor airs any late-season episodes with the supposedly "missing" contestant.