Believe it or not, Luke Parker still has supporters who believe that he’s a good man and Hannah Brown is basically a Jezebel.
In his opinion, fans who hate him for how he treated Hannah are, well, tilting at windmills.
Luke explains that he wasn’t trying to be controlling or slut-shamey. He just got the "villain edit" from producers.
Luke Parker sat down for a YouTube interview on a faith-based YouTube channel called Paul & Morgan.
The full discussion is more than 33 minutes long (in this economy?!), but Luke doesn’t need that much time to make his case.
"I really didn’t know I was being portrayed as the villain," Luke laments.
Here, he sounds like every bad dude. Most of them don’t see themselves as controlling or misogynistic.
But Luke explains that, actually, he was really just on the receiving end of the infamous bad edit.
"I’m [a] pretty naive kind of guy," Luke claims.
"It didn’t — it took until Latvia," he says. "And that’s kind of where I knew it."
What did he know? He says: "I’m the villain."
Luke explains that he worked it out when producers started "asking me these types of questions like, why are they trying to get me to say stuff like this."
The interesting thing about questions is that you still control what answers you give.
"So, let’s talk about sex and how the marriage bed should be kept pure," Luke famously said to Hannah.
"I had an encounter with God," he recalled while speaking to her. "I was in the shower and God was speaking to me."
You don’t have to share Luke’s beliefs to offer reasonable respect for a religious person’s experiences.
"I realized that I wasn’t the man that I wanted to be," Luke confessed to Hannah.
"And," he added. "I’ve been working on being the husband that I want to be for my future wife."
Luke says that, when he and Hannah were not on camera, they had further positive discussions of their shared Christian faith.
According to his claims, Hannah expressed that "it’s imperative that [her future husband] has a strong relationship with God."
"And we’re talking about our relationship with God and how important it is to us," Luke recalls.
"And," he narrates. "I’m thinking, wow, this [relationship] is gonna work."
While we cannot confirm this conversation, it certainly sounds like Hannah.
"I laid out a few brief scriptures with her," Luke shares during the lengthy, lengthy YouTube discussion.
He says that he "[then said] I’m going to abstain from sex before marriage because that’s what God’s best is for me."
Good for him for doing whatever he likes with his body and his sexuality.
"And," Luke adds. "She goes as far [as] to say, ‘Luke I share the exact same heart and the exact same convictions as you. We’re on the same page.’"
We would be so interested to hear the exact wording of what Hannah said.
Luke says that he felt at ease under the assumption that Hannah intended to remain chaste until she was married.
"So in my mind, I’m like, oh we’re good," Luke expresses.
"I wasn’t slut-shaming her [or] judging her," he insists.
"Like," he adds. "I actually went back to fight for her."
He then discusses the infamous confrontation where he challenged Hannah for having boned out of wedlock.
"I still wanted to be with her at that moment," Luke recalls. "And I knew that she had done this regardless of the details."
"I was just like, with the conversations that we’ve had that [didn’t] air, she’s telling me that she wants to [abstain],": he claims.
"So I’m thinking if she’s living this life and on this [other] path," Luke adds. "Then she’s making a mistake."
"And," he says. "I need to go say, ‘Hey look, like, you’re making a big mistake, like, you can’t send me home, like, I need some clarity here or some closure.’"
Luke spins a pretty tale. Is he telling the truth?
But to believe him, you might have to believe that Hannah pranked him with long theological talks so that she could humiliate him on TV?
Doesn’t it seem more likely that Luke heard what he wanted to hear in Hannah’s words, and that they have different ideas about living by their faith?
If so, he’s telling the truth as he remembers it. Again, we’d love to hear Hannah’s exact phrasing.
Of course, Luke’s story about Hannah doesn’t explain his strange behavior with the other suitors.
And we’ve heard the "bad edit" excuse from dozens of reality stars — maybe hundreds. They can edit all that they like, but your words are your own.
