"I'm not going to say it doesn't hurt," Krisily Kennedy tells bachelor Charlie O'Connell.

09:02 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 17, 2005

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

Rejected. On live TV. In front of millions of people.

That's what happened to Warwick's Krisily Kennedy on the finale of the ABC dating reality show The Bachelor last night.

Kennedy, a former Miss Rhode Island USA, was one of the last two contestants on the program.

Bachelor Charlie O'Connell had narrowed his choices to Kennedy and Sarah Brice, a Texas nurse.

O'Connell said he didn't want to give Kennedy the bad news in front of the audience, which included Kennedy's family, so he went back to her dressing room to tell her he had chosen Brice. Of course, it wasn't exactly a private moment. The Bachelor's cameras were busy recording the whole awkward conversation.

"I'm not going to say it doesn't hurt," Kennedy told O'Connell.

Later, in front of the studio audience, Bachelor host Chris Harrison asked Kennedy how long it would take her to get over O'Connell's decision.

"Call me in a month," she said.

As for winner Brice, she received a "promise ring" from O'Connell, but he didn't propose marriage.

Unlike previous episodes of the show, in which the bachelors made their choices in taped episodes that didn't air for several months, O'Connell was making his pick on live TV.

Early in the show, Harrison checked in with all three principals while they waited backstage. They had all the cheeriness of prisoners waiting for an execution.

"I'm really nervous," said O'Connell. "I'm not looking forward to telling a girl on live TV that it's over."

"I'm a nervous wreck," said Kennedy.

"I'm freaking out," said Brice.

Journal photo / Bill Murphy

Krisily Kennedy, 25, of Warwick, came in second in ABC's dating reality show The Bachelor last night.

Last night's three-hour Bachelor marathon began with footage, taped in March, in which both women visited O'Connell's family in Montauk, N.Y.

At the end of their Montauk visit, O'Connell told Kennedy and Brice that he still couldn't make up his mind.

He said he wanted to date them both in the "real world" before making his decision.

Neither woman was very happy.

"I'm bummed," said Kennedy. "Now all I have is more waiting. I was hoping to get answers. Now I've got a lot more sleepless nights ahead of me."

Kennedy, 25, works at her cousin's hair salon, Michele Martin Salon in Cranston, and as a bartender at the Mardi Gras, also in Cranston.

After the first hour, The Bachelor switched to the present, with everyone gathered before a studio audience in Los Angeles.

O'Connell finally had to make his choice. But not before The Bachelor dragged out the suspense as long as humanly possible.

O'Connell may have wanted to continue dating each woman in the "real world," but that world was frequently invaded by The Bachelor's cameras and microphones.

The TV audience heard some of the phone calls between O'Connell and the two women, and watched portions of their dates.

There was footage of O'Connell on separate trips with Kennedy and Brice to Mexico, followed by live interviews with both women.

Both women said they were in love with O'Connell.

"I am," said Kennedy. "I can't find anything not to like about him. He's like an old pair of jeans that you put on and they just feel right."

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