The Bachelorette airs new episodes Mondays at 8pm, only on ABC.
The highly anticipated new season of The Bachelorette begins tonight. Not only is Rachel Lindsay the first African-American lead and the oldest bachelorette to date, but I’m sure this will be the MOST DRAMATIC season yet. As for her being the oldest, I’m all for it! Why only have bachelors and bachelorettes in their early twenties? They need to figure life out first, let the quest for love be for the people that know what they’re looking for.
And Rachel definitely knows what she is looking for. She wants a man with a good sense of humor, ambition, smart, have a decent jump shot and the ability to talk sports. A man who’ll be willing to compete for her attention with two other men she holds dearly, her nephew Allister and her dog Copper. But don’t dare to be cocky, cockiness is an absolute no go if you’re fighting for her love and heart.
So what do we know about Rachel. Well, if you’ve seen her on Nick’s season of The Bachelor you know Rachel to be a fun, loving and smart young woman with a big personality. She’s a civil defense-lawyer from Dallas and besides being the first African American lead, she was also the first African-American woman to snag the first impression rose.
What can we expect from her this season?
One thing is for sure and that is that she’s be direct. “I’m so direct that I won’t entertain the drama or the pettiness or cattiness in the house. I’ll just deal with situations as they come to me, so if guys come to me about a villain in the house, I’ll be aware of it, my antennas will be up but I’m not going to feed into it too much. That’s not my style. I’m not going to toe the line or be indecisive when I make my decisions. When I know I want to do something I’m just gonna do it.”
She also won’t be afraid to address the race issue. “I always say, it’s something that should be talked about. I’m happy to address it. I’m honored to be the first black Bachelorette. With the guys, you know, if it’s something new to them, then I want to talk about it the same way that I wanted to talk to Nick about it: ‘Have you ever dated a black woman before?’ I’ll talk about my experiences as well. You know, it’s about me, too, but I don’t want it to be something that defines our relationship. But I think it’s something important to address. Those conversations were had later on, but it really wasn’t a theme or an issue during the season,” she revealed.
And in true Bachelor and Bachelorette fashion, she might get a little emotional. “When I was talking to Nick Viall a little bit off camera, he was saying that typically he’s not that sensitive, but you become so invested in this process. He was like, ‘You’ll be surprised, you’ll be more emotional than you think you will be.’ I really wanted to make sure that I didn’t come off as intimidating or too powerful being in that position. I wanted to remain vulnerable and soft for the men and let them know that they could approach me in that way too.” But besides her getting a little emotional, we might even she her breaking point. “I would love to say that it was always sunshine and blue skies, but it’s hard. It’s hard physically, it’s hard emotionally. You really become invested in the men that are there for you. You have no idea how they’re going to impact your life. So I definitely had my days where it’s — it was harder than most, and you’ll see that as you watch the show. You’ll definitely see it.” But being so emotionally invested doesn’t mean that she got intimate in the Fantasy Suites, as this is what she said before filming; “Right as I stand here today, no, I don’t see myself getting intimate with everyone in the fantasy suites. But when you get in that moment, you just don’t know. So we’ll have to wait, watch and see, but no, I don’t see that happening for me.”
So now on to the men that are vowing for her heart. You better get comfortable, because Rachel will have the largest group of suitors in Bachelor history: 31 men!
As always, Chris Harrison already called this season the most dramatic yet. He alsotold us a little of what we can expect. “There are going to be battles, there are going to be guys that just go after each other. There are two guys that are going after each other, they end up getting sent home on the same night — they almost don’t even care, and they start going after each other in the exit interview. One walks over to the other and starts verbally just going after, abusing him, as he is giving his goodbye speech. Like, they can’t stop this battle, and that is such a guy thing.” But besides fighting, we can also expect tears. “So, on the Mesnick scale, which is how all emotion scales are weighed, I would say it is a good 7 or 8,” he joked in reference to former Bachelor Jason Mesnick’s infamous balcony meltdown. “I don’t know if it is a full Mesnick — I was trying to think if we had a full Mesnick — I don’t think we go that far, but it’s Mesnickian.”
Here are some other fun facts about Rachel
- She enjoys jamming out to Michael Jackson and Prince, playing basketball and watching scary movies.
- Before going on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor, she never saw an episode of The Bachelor
- She has a thing for musicians and suggested to John Mayer to sign up for The Bachelorette.
- She is a Belieber.
- She already admitted to be very much in loved and happily engaged, so she will have her happy ending.
- She has a thing for penguins, something one of the men used for his limo exit.
- And most of all, she’ll got engaged! Rachel herself revealed that she is “very much so in love and very much so engaged.”
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