Filming for The Bachelorette's fourth season recently wrapped, and while ABC isn't allowing DeAnna Pappas to say if she got engaged to one of her 25 suitors -- or even if she found love -- the 26-year-old Neunan, GA real estate agent hinted that it has a happy ending.
|
ADVERTISEMENT
|
"I want America and all the people that supported me to hopefully see a love story, to hopefully see happiness, to hopefully see people connect, and know that the show, it works. People really do find love. People really do fall in love."
The reason why Pappas assured viewers that falling in love is an attainable goal via the reality dating series is because she was rejected twice by The Bachelor eleventh-season star Brad Womack -- first at the final Rose Ceremony during the show's finale broadcast and for a second time during ABC's The Bachelor: After the Final Rose special.
"I was really confused when it happened," Pappas told reporters about Womack's rejections. "But after it was all over, said and done with, I was actually very happy that Brad stood-up for what he believed in and didn't propose to someone just because he was under pressure. I'm thankful that he didn't propose to me. Everything happens for a reason and I'm where I am today because of all of that, and I'm very happy for that."
In addition, Pappas said being in Womack's shoes while shooting The Bachelorette gave her a better understanding of the situation he was in.
"I do have a newfound respect for Brad and all the other bachelors and bachelorettes," she said. "It's definitely a tough process. I don't think I realized how hard it was going to be sometimes. I have a newfound respect for what all of those people went through."
Still, Pappas said the only thing she was a "little nervous about" was that her stint as The Bachelorette's star would be a repeat performance.
"Give my past relationships and given what happened with Brad, obviously I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get my heart broken again," she explained. "I went into this 100%, put my heart on the line, and hoping that somebody wouldn't take it and run away with it and crush me."
While she was never one to previously wear her heart on her sleeve, Pappas said participating in The Bachelor taught her that's necessary if you hope to "find love."
"I realized that it's okay -- people get their heart broken everyday," she said. "But you get up, you smile, it's a beautiful world and you get over it. That just means that there's somebody that much better out there for you. If you never fall in love, what's the point of being in a relationship ever."
Considering the way The Bachelor's eleventh season ended for her, one might think Pappas may have had an ax to grind against men. But she said that's not the case.
"I'm not one of those people that tries to get revenge," she said. "It's kind of hard with such a great group of guys to be tough on anyone. It's all about everyone having fun and finding love."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWPappas added she never considered pulling a Womack and rejecting all 25 suitors that The Bachelorette lined up for her.
"My thoughts on [not picking one at the end] is that I find it hard with them finding 25 great guys with all the qualities that I look for and me not finding at least one that I would like to further a relationship with," she explained.
Pappas said the 25 guys cast for The Bachelorette "really far exceeded my expectations" and she further described them as "great, wonderful, beautiful men." Although all but less than a handful of her suitors are younger than her, Pappas said "age doesn't really matter to me."
"I wanted to make sure that these guys were family-oriented, goal-oriented, career-driven, that they were happy, that they loved to travel, and that they're always open to new things," she said. "The fact that they're tall, dark and handsome doesn't hurt."
The Bachelorette's fourth season will begin with the 25 men arriving at a cocktail party and immediately attempting to woo Pappas, a situation she found herself in with Womack during The Bachelor's eleventh-season debut.
"It's funny because when you're one of those 25 girls and you're coming out of those limos, you're just so nervous you don't even know what you're saying," she told reporters before explaining how she approached The Bachelorette's first night. "For me, I was a little nervous because out of 25 people, hopefully one of them is the one. So I was a little bit nervous. But once the limos started arriving, I was so excited because here I am with 25 almost perfect guys showing up just to date me. I was so excited."
Not surprisingly, the guys pull out all the stops when it comes to impressing Pappas on that first night, and she described some of their antics as "so crazy."
"I know what it's like to be one of those people on night one -- just trying to stand out, trying to make sure you get your point across, trying to make sure that one person notices you," she said. "So I was completely flattered that these guys were doing things like this to catch my attention."
ADVERTISEMENT
She'll also have help from fellow The Bachelor eleventh-season suitor Jenni Croft -- who was also rejected by Womack during the final Rose Ceremony -- in determining who gets one of the boutonnieres.
"Well on the first night there's one of me and 25 guys. I made it perfectly clear that I am putting my heart into this 100%. I'm taking it very seriously. So there's 25 guys, I wanted to make sure I got to know everyone," explained Pappas to Reality TV World.
"Well Jenni and I have continued to be very good friends throughout this whole process -- obviously, we have the same taste in men. So I asked her to come out and just help me a little and ask some of these questions to these guys -- get to know them and help me out and make sure I'm making the right decisions."
Croft -- who has reunited with and gotten engaged to her former live-in boyfriend since The Bachelor's eleventh edition filmed last year -- will individually grill each of the bachelors to try and learn as much about them as possible before reporting back to Pappas, who will then offer a boutonniere to one of the men based on her conversation with Croft.
"I'm so thankful that she was able to come out for the night and meet the guys and ask them the hard questions and grill them and get to know them and give me her input on what she thought," said Pappas of Croft.
In addition, The Bachelorette's fourth season will include a twist that deals with the suitor's living situation.
Instead of living in a luxurious mansion like prior The Bachelor and The Bachelorette suitors, the bachelors competing for Pappas' heart will live in an ABC-described "unspectacular bunkhouse." However the "bunkhouse" will be "down the hill" from Pappas' own mansion, and she'll give three different trios of suitors the opportunity to live in the mansion with her at various times throughout the season.
"I was so excited that I got that option," Pappas told Reality TV World about the twist.
"Early on in the show, everyone's No. 1 complaint is, 'I didn't get enough time! I didn't get enough time to get to know her!' With this, if you were one of the three guys living in the house and you didn't take the time to get to know me, than that was your own fault. We had endless amounts of time. So I was all about it because it gave me the extra time to get to know these guys -- to see which one was best for me."
While her male suitors presumably won't be as catty as their female The Bachelor counterparts, Pappas assumed that some drama goes down in the fight for her heart.
"I don't know anything specific," she said, "but I do know if you get 15 guys living in one house and they're all fight for the heart of one person -- times do get rough, tensions get high, people get stressed out, people start really falling for someone and you don't like to hear another guy say that he has the same feelings as you. I'm sure that there's a couple disagreements between the guys."
After she was rejected by Womack, Pappas expressed interest in serving as The Bachelorette's object of affection during an interview with Reality TV World. ABC then announced The Bachelorette's fourth season-- the first since the show's third edition aired nearly three years ago -- would air this summer before subsequently revealing Pappas as the star.
ADVERTISEMENT
In addition, Pappas told reporters it's not exactly like her love life took off after appearing on The Bachelor last fall.
"I was on one date after Brad," she said. "One date, and it obviously did not go very well. It was a friend of mine and we just went to dinner. I realized he's just a friend. We were good friends and we're still friends now."
Despite airing twelve editions The Bachelor has produced zero weddings so far. However The Bachelorette couples have faired better, but that's solely because the show's first-season couple Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter got married and have since welcomed their first child.
"She's like the poster child for The Bachelorette," said Pappas about Trista. "I saw her actually when they revealed I was going to be The Bachelorette and she gave me some pretty good advice to just follow my heart and be true to myself. I could only hope to have a successful relationship like she has."
Even with the advice, Pappas described starring in The Bachelorette as an "odd situation."
"I'm a one-man kind of woman. I don't date multiple guys at one time," she explained. "So it was tough trying to sit in a room and make sure I'm not paying attention to one guy more than the other six guys that are there. It was definitely a different situation for me."
The Bachelorette's fourth season will premiere on Monday, May 19 at 9PM ET/PT and following it's two-hour debut, it will air regularly from 8-10PM ET/PT beginning Monday, May 26.
"This has been the craziest yet most amazing experience of my life -- doing The Bachelor and The Bachelorette," said Pappas. "You learn so much. I've learned so much about myself and life and love and people and everything."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio
