Mild-mannered almond farmer and father, Jarrad Casaretto, had one of Farmer Wants A Wife’s most underrated journeys.
Jarrad brought a calm, reserved nature to the show, which came in stark contrast to his dramatic finale, when his finalist Yvonne interrupted his decision and dumped him first. Left blindsided, Jarrad ultimately chose primary school teacher Brodie as his winner, but viewers will have to wait until the reunion to find out if they went the distance.
Throughout the season, Jarrad has been the subject of much division between FWAW fans, who have struggled to connect with him and his love story. “There is something so off about Jarrad,” read one comment in a FWAW Facebook group. “He has no depth or personality. Bland as an arrowroot biscuit.”
Others have speculated that Jarrad could be censoring his personality while on camera. “He is awkward in front of cameras… he would be a different person when the cameras aren’t in his face!”
Cara was selected to go to Jarrad’s farm, but she was dumped soon after their solo date. She told Woman’s Day that she found Jarrad’s ‘timid’ personality didn’t click with her ‘loud, bubbly’ nature. “I knew from the start that he’s probably not going to be my person,” she shared.
“It was just hard to talk to him. It is what you see on camera on TV. Sometimes, it felt more like an interview, like he was sort of rehearsing questions. It wasn’t really banter back and forth. It was just hard to talk to him,” she said.
“But he was a really nice guy, and he was a great father.”
But Cara claims when the cameras weren’t rolling, a different Jarrad emerged — and he had a ‘wild side’.
Farmer Jarrad was a ‘different person’ away from the FWAW cameras
Cara divulged to Woman’s Day that when no one was filming, Jarrad had a more ‘out-there’ personality.
“I did see him open up, and there were snippets off camera where he did open up even more, and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s got this little wild side.’ There was definitely a little bit more of his personality that came out,” she said about the father-of-two.
“It was actually when we would go for walks in the morning. He was at one point showing us his Ducati [motorbike], which was really cool. This was a different side to Farmer Jarrad — I think he does have a more out-there side. He was just a bit more reserved during filming because it’s going to be on TV and he’s got kids.”
That said, Cara quickly knew that Jarrad wasn’t the man for her. “I need someone who I can feed off their personality as well. He was much more timid than I thought. But still, a great guy. He’s awesome.”
Jarrad’s reaction to the backlash from FWAW fans
A source told Woman’s Day that Jarrad has been having a ‘tough time’ with FWAW fans dissecting his personality online, claiming that he has been given a ‘bad edit’ that doesn’t reflect his real self.
Cara spoke to Jarrad after she was eliminated from his farm and they exchanged some messages about the backlash.
“Jarrad checked in with me after I got dumped after our farewell dinner,” she said. “Just a few messages back and forth after that, just about the show and how he’s feeling, because obviously he’s been getting some not-so-nice comments online. I just wanted to check in on him.”
Farmer Wants A Wife’s Cara shares behind-the-scenes filming secrets
In the same chat with Woman’s Day, Cara revealed some juicy behind-the-scenes secrets from FWAW. The filming schedule is even more stretched out than she could have imagined — and it’s not so glamorous.
“We all assumed the first episode was filmed in one day. It’s not — it’s filmed over three days,” she said. “We had to wear the same dress for three days. That was probably the weirdest thing.”
Despite some FWAW ladies claiming they didn’t get to spend much time with their farmers, Cara said that this wasn’t the case for her farm. “We did spend quite a bit of time with him. He would come around in the mornings and we’d go for walks, so we did spend some off-camera time with him together as a group, which was really nice. He’d come have breakfast with us, we’d play Uno and hang around.”
