Locky Gilbert was forced to send five contestants home during Wednesday’s The Bachelor as the coronavirus pandemic finally caught up with the show.

And although the episode was its usual mess of confusion and catfights, our insider tells us there was plenty of drama that failed to make it to television .

Here’s how our source says things actually played out….

‘Locky was only told he’d have to send five girls home half an hour before the rose ceremony started and was completely shocked. 

‘He was pretty furious as he hadn’t spent time with half of the girls and didn’t understand what the urgency was. 

‘At this point during filming the NSW government had just announced that all gatherings must be limited to 10 people or less. They all had to act pretty fast.

‘Nobody really had any idea what was going to happen to the show but producers wanted to get the numbers down asap. The girls weren’t told that the mass exodus was anything to do with COVID until after they’d been evicted.

‘They left the mansion that night and everybody else moved out the next morning as production was halted.’