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Five minutes into the phone interview with Jake Pavelka —  familiar to most as the handsome ”Bachelor” in Season 14 –he breathlessly tells me he has to pull over since there’s a man lying down in the middle road and he has to check “if he’s okay.” One minute later the man bounces up and runs down the road but this more than anything Jake says in the next hour, demonstrates what kind of person he really is, outside of the glare of TV lights.

But let’s re-cap:

As you remember, the “Bachelor” season ended with Pavelka proposing marriage to contestant Vienna Girardi (of course) but the couple split up in June of that same year. Unfortuantely, the network pressured them into a televised tell-all of sorts which soon turned nasty.

During the disastrous event, Jake yelled at Vienna and stormed off and from that point on was known as the bad guy.  As he explains it, “America had labeled me the All -American, Do-the -right -thing- guy and I was hurt and confused and how I acted didn’t ‘fit in with their image.’ ” More on this later.

 

He did parlay it into a star turn as a celeb dancer on “Dancing With The Stars” (he and his partner Chelsie Hightower were the fifth to be eliminated) and a celebrity guest host of the Chippendales  at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.  (He had the six-pack to pull this off after training for triathlons.)

“It was great fun,” he says of hosting the male Revue. “I’d never done live audience hosting before so I learned a great deal. It’s all in the timing. Originally I came out with a short scirpt I’d learned but then decided to try winging it – talking to people in the audience, making jokes, having fun  with it. The response was great!”

After taking acting lessons for six years, Jake has a re-occurring role on the soap “Bold and the Beautiful” but is equally excited about the web series, “Burning Love” a hysterical show on the  Yahoo! comedy channel, where Jake plays, well, “Jake.” Created by Erica Oyama, wife of star/director Ken Marino,and produced by Ben Stiller’s company, its a witty parody of you-know-what-show, with your single, typical shirtless firefighter looking for love. (New episodes are released weekly on Mondays and Thursdays.)

Celeb friends of Stiller take star turns, including Jennifer Aniston (as a contestant in a panda suit) and Ben Stiller makes a guest appearance in one of the best episodoes.

Instead of a rose, they have a “hose ceremony” (no, we’re not explaining it; you’ll have to watch it.)

Jake has fun with his role and seems to relish spoofing the “Bachelor” juggernaut and it’s smarmy characters.

But has our man found love? Has he been so typecast as the “player” bachelor that he can’t meet women ? Does he ever talk to Vienna? Coming tomorrow!

Watch Jake in action here.