Love in the limelight with ‘Bachelor’ Sean Lowe

By all odds, Catherine and Sean Lowe should never have met, let alone fallen in love. Of the dozens of made-for-TV couples produced on “The Bachelor,” only a precious few actually make it to the altar.

The Lowes, who settled down in Vickery Place after marrying last year during a televised fairytale wedding, are one of the most beloved couples to ever appear on the TV dating juggernaut that ABC created in “The Bachelor,” where a dashing suitor dates more than a dozen blushing potential brides simultaneously until he finds his princess. Unlike most bachelors before him, for Sean, that actually ended up being cast-mate Catherine.

Sean captured the unusual twists and turns of their romantic journey in his newly released book, “For the Right Reasons,” which he co-authored with Nancy French.

It begins with the story of his life pre-reality TV as a young football star, and it takes us through his fall from grace in college, which was a catalyst in his decision to be a part of ABC’s “The Bachelorette” in 2012. It was actually his sister and brother-in-law who signed him up for the show in the first place.

He made it almost to the bitter end of “The Bachelorette,” and he was even certain he would win bachelorette Emily Maynard’s heart, but she gave him the boot before the final round, leaving him heartbroken in third place.

Not long after, ABC offered him the role as leading man on its “The Bachelor” and he decided to take another chance at finding love in front of millions of viewers. Against all odds, the couple made it past the limelight – albeit not without a healthy dose of reality TV drama – and seem to have genuinely found true love.

Throughout the book, Sean offers plenty of behind-the-scenes glimpses into his life in front of the lens. In chapter 14, “The Decision,” Sean walks readers through the agony of having to choose between two women — both of whom, he claims, he was in love with at the time.

As the final rose ceremony approached, he begged the producer for an unscheduled (and thus clandestine) chat with Catherine the night before filming the season’s finale. Traditionally, the bachelor ends the season by proposing to the woman of his choice on the final show, but Sean, who is deeply religious, needed to understand where Catherine was on her own spiritual journey before he could ask for her hand.

He also shared an intimate glimpse of what it was like to have private details of the couple’s life touted to sell tabloids — particularly the couple’s decision to wait until their wedding night to have sex.

“I hated that everyone wanted to talk about how I was the ‘born-again virgin bachelor,’ a phrase I had never used before in my life,” Sean wrote, later adding, “No one would’ve made jokes — or even found it noteworthy — had I been some sort of playboy, bedding women left and right.”