Television

Why The Bachelor's Bekah Martinez Was Reported Missing

By Emily Surpless

The reality TV star appeared on late night to open up about her personal life.

After getting booted from The Bachelor, Bekah Martinez appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Feb. 12, 2018. And host Jimmy Kimmel had a lot of questions — starting with, "Why were you on the missing persons list in Humboldt county?"

According to Martinez, the whole thing was just one big misunderstanding. "Alright, let me set the record straight," she began, explaining that she'd gone away for a week or so with friends after being kicked off of The Bachelor. "First of all, a lot of people thought I lied to my mother, saying that I was 'on a farm' when I was actually on The Bachelor — but no, I had already been eliminated from the show, and I just decided to go up to the mountains with some friends for a couple of weeks."

She noted that she hadn't had any cell service, though she'd thought she would have and had told her mother as much. After hanging with her friends for about six or seven days, Martinez said she got a "weird feeling" and decided she needed to get in contact with her family. So she left her friends and found an area where she had reception to call her parents — but it was a little too late. She told Kimmel that when she spoke to her parents, she learned that her mother had already reported her as missing.

When pressed to comment on reports that she'd been spending time on a marijuana farm, Martinez joked, "Is that what that was? Was that a marijuana farm I was on?"

However, she added that it wasn't her farm. "To set the record straight, I'm not a weed farmer," Martinez stated. "I'm still a nanny in L.A. But yes, my friends have a weed farm..."

As People magazine reported, Martinez was spotted on a missing persons list from California's Humboldt County, which was shared on the North Coast Journal as the publication's cover story. The journal had asked readers via Facebook if they'd recognized any of the missing people, leading one commenter to point out that Martinez was on The Bachelor. Afterwards, the North Coast Journal contacted the Sheriff's Department. An officer then contacted Martinez, confirmed she was not missing, and then removed her from the list.

Martinez's mother had reported her daughter missing around 1:06 a.m. on Nov. 18, after allegedly not hearing from her since Nov. 12. Martinez's mom claimed that the 22-year-old had told her she'd be working on a marijuana farm. When police couldn't contact Martinez, they marked her as a missing person, as is protocol.

Though Martinez's mom had emailed the authorities to let them know she'd gotten into contact with her daughter, police did not take her name off of the missing persons list because they hadn't spoken with Martinez directly.

After her missing persons story went viral, Martinez took to Twitter to poke fun at the news. "MOM. how many times do I have to tell you I don't get cell service on The Bachelor??" she joked.

She added, "Honestly the scariest thing about this story is that my efforts to conceal The Worst Drivers License Photo Of All Time have been thwarted."

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