Though the experience was “crushing,” Locke said, it’s obvious televised breakups do have benefits.
“We love you Kiptyn! You should have won!” shouted Shelley Flinders from her car when she spotted Locke sitting at an outdoor table at the Pannikin in Encinitas on a recent weekday. Flinders, 45, who was vacationing in San Diego from Las Vegas, had driven down Coast Highway hoping to catch a glimpse of the newly minted heartthrob. When she saw him, she stopped her car and jumped out, camera in hand. “As gorgeous as you are, you will have no problem finding someone else,” Flinders assured him as Locke good-naturedly draped his arm around her shoulder and snapped self-portraits. “I’m not obsessed with you or anything. I’m old enough to be your mother!” Locke seemed to both enjoy and look slightly embarrassed by the fuss. “It’s that 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “But it’s not forever.” Such is the life of a reality TV star, a realm in which “reality” is used only in the loosest sense, producers gin up conflicts and dramatic twists, and selective editing lets viewers see only a fraction of what really goes on. For the most part, Locke felt fairly depicted, though he can’t say the same for his mother, who seemed as if she had the makings of a mother-in-law from hell when she grilled “Bachelorette” Jillian Harris.
“My mom is the sweetest, most loving, goofy, bubbly, lady I know,” Locke said of his mother, Eve Beutler, a counselor who founded Cancer Angels of San Diego.