Former reality star Emily Maynard’s love life is now an open book

Oh dear. Look who’s back. Again.

It’s that poor, misguided young woman from those stupid reality dating shows. You know: The one who got engaged on national TV – twice – and wound up dumping the guy. Twice.

Does she really deserve yet another 15 minutes of fame? Does she truly have anything new to say?

Emily Maynard isn’t naive. She knows this is exactly what a lot of people will be thinking when they see her photo, when they read this story, and certainly when they learn she’s written a book (titled “I Said Yes,” due out Tuesday) based largely on her experiences as the star of ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.”

But the SouthPark stay-at-home mom – who finally found a husband when the cameras weren’t looking, whose life finally had been molded into something resembling normal here in Charlotte – is stepping back into the spotlight this winter.

Not for fame, she says. For God.

“I really did not want to put myself out there again,” Maynard said, her face glowing in the afternoon light that streamed through the large windows at Forest Hill Church off Park Road.

“But I just prayed about it, and I felt like this was God seeing something good out of ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘Bachelorette.’ I always knew that there was a reason I did it. Obviously it wasn’t to meet my husband – shockingly enough – but I felt like maybe God gave me the platform so that I could help grow his kingdom.”

From dating show to divinity

Before we go any further, a little background for the uninitiated.

“The Bachelor” is a popular reality dating show on which several women compete for the affections of some gorgeous hunk (and “The Bachelorette” a popular spinoff where the gender roles are reversed). Ladies get weeded out every episode, and in the finale, the man typically proposes to his favorite. The relationships almost never last.

Maynard was just 24 when she was cast on the series in 2010, and was memorable for being a single mom whose daughter’s dad was late NASCAR driver Ricky Hendrick (her fiance at the time of his death in 2004), and for being the eventual winner. She got engaged to entrepreneur Brad Womack on the show... but they called it quits soon afterward.

She was 25 when she was cast as the star of “The Bachelorette’s” eighth installment, which was unique because production moved to Charlotte from L.A. in order to minimize disruption for her and daughter Ricki (although, yes, the whole thing still was terribly disruptive). She wound up choosing entrepreneur Jef Holm, who – against her wishes, you’ll learn in her new book – proposed to her in the finale, but they went in opposite directions later that year.

In February, she turned 30. Life has settled.

She’s now a few months shy of celebrating anniversary No. 2 with husband Tyler Johnson, who has never been on TV. The two met at Forest Hill, where he is a church elder. When they started dating, he was a management consultant at Mooresville-based Automotive Development Group; Johnson is currently the retail operations manager at Hendrick Lexus.

Maynard also is a new mom once again – this time to baby boy Jennings, born last July and named for her grandfather. (Daughter Ricki, now 10, is a fourth-grader at Charlotte Christian.)

But more than 3 1/2 years after her run on reality-TV ended, she says she is still trying to get the bad taste out of her mouth.

“I still feel a lot of shame and embarrassment about doing the show,” Maynard said, “but that’s where my faith has to come in, too – that God doesn’t care about any of that, and I need to focus on what he has planned for my future.”

As for that faith, she reveals in her book that “church was an occasional event” when she was a child, that her relationship with God became stronger thanks to Ricky Hendrick, and that it was tested after he died.

“You’d think I’d turn to God, but I didn’t,” she writes. “Maybe I wasn’t ready. Or I just didn’t know how. Besides, I wanted personal companionship, real-life people I could talk to and do fun things with. Not knowing where to turn, I started hanging out with a fast crowd that liked to have a good time. And in the process of trying to divert attention away from feeling empty, I made some foolish decisions, ones I am not proud of.”

It wasn’t until after her breakup with Jef Holm – as she struggled with doubts, questions and confusion – that “I was finally letting God do His job,” Maynard writes. “And He was allowing me to start over.”

‘Nobody’s life has been perfect’

Maynard was encouraged to write the 214-page book by an agent who had seen a video featuring Maynard and her then-fiance Tyler Johnson being interviewed on stage at Forest Hill – in February 2014, by pastor David Chadwick – about how her view of love had changed since the show.

The details were fleshed out thanks to her longtime obsession with journaling; the prose was punched up by ghostwriter A.J. Gregory, who also is credited with writing a book with Justin Bieber’s mom, Pattie Mallette; the most controversial stuff was expunged by lawyers responsible for making sure she doesn’t get sued by ABC; and the book was published by Thomas Nelson, a faith-based arm of HarperCollins.

Her goal: “I just really wanted to be relatable. Nobody’s life has been perfect. Nobody’s made every right choice. And I wanted whoever was reading it to see themselves in me, whether it was thinking that the wrong guy was the one you’re going to marry and throwing yourself into that relationship, or just making everyday mistakes. I wanted them to know that that’s something that happens to everybody.”

Thomas Nelson is pitching it in promotional materials as a “tell-all,” but Maynard is quick to refute that claim: “I don’t want anybody to read this with the expectation that it’s going to be a ‘Bachelor’ tell-all. That was never my purpose in writing it. I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. I don’t have ill will towards anybody. I didn’t spill any major secrets.”

(She is now among more than a dozen former “Bachelor”/“Bachelorette” contestants who have written books.)

Still, more than half of the book is about her time on the two shows, from her perspective; and fans might be surprised by what she divulges about how manipulative the producers can be and how artificial the finished product really is.

There are other surprises, too (spoiler alert):

▪ During a bout with insecurity, loneliness and academic pressure while attending a boarding school in Florida that she hated, Maynard told a counselor, “I just want to die” – and was promptly admitted to a local hospital. A few months later, the depressed teen intentionally overdosed on Prozac and wound up in the emergency room.

▪ Maynard – who has long contended that she stayed home and wasn’t with Ricky Hendrick when his plane went down because she was feeling ill – reveals in the book that “there was something else that kept me home, something I have never before shared publicly. Ricky and I had just gotten into a heated argument before he left the house...”

▪ And regarding her husband, Tyler Johnson: “In case you’re wondering, we waited to have sex with each other until after we were married,” she writes late in the book. “Best decision ever.”

But perhaps the most surprising thing about Emily Maynard these days is her self-awareness and groundedness.

“I want to be very clear: My intentions with writing the book aren’t to further my career in any way,” she said. “I’m not looking to be on any more TV shows. It’s truly just to share my story of how God has impacted my life, and hope that maybe somebody else can find meaning in that, and hope for their life.

“I’m not Jennifer Aniston. I’m never going to be. This is very fleeting. And I know I don’t have this platform because of any talents I have. I went on a dating show and that’s why this is happening. It’s not because of anything I’ve done.”

“If you look at the show as a whole,” Maynard said, “how many people have you seen come out of it and become A-list celebrities? None. So if you’re trying to be famous, you should absolutely not go on ‘The Bachelor,’ because no one will ever take you seriously ever again.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 4:19 PM with the headline "Former reality star Emily Maynard’s love life is now an open book."