Bachelor Nation is really going through it right now, because we’re witnessing the messiest Bachelorette drama since Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumped Becca Kufrin on camera weeks after proposing to her in the Bachelor finale. Maybe even messier. And I don’t mean that in the our-most-dramatic-season-finale-ever way, either.
For everyone who is only visiting Bachelor Nation on a tourist visa and not a longtime resident: a primer on The Bachelorette drama between Jenn Tran, Devin Strader, and Maria Georgas that is continuing to unfold after “After the Final Rose.”
What happened on the finale?
Traditionally, every Bachelor and Bachelorette and now Golden Bachelor/ette season ends with a proposal. Jenn Tran, the first Asian Bachelorette, switched things up only slightly by proposing to her finale pick, Devin Strader, instead of letting him propose to her. He accepted, and everything seemed to be going according to the usual plan.
But before viewers even saw the proposal, the show revealed that while Jenn and Devin had left Hawaii engaged, their engagement ended when Devin broke up with Jenn over the phone a few weeks before a planned “Happy Couple” visit from production. At least he didn’t do it on camera, right? “He basically said that he didn’t love me anymore and didn’t feel the same way,” Jenn told host Jesse Palmer on the finale episode. “He denied ever being in love.… He was checked out. It wasn’t what he wanted anymore.”
That would be bad enough but, unfortunately, the audacity continued.
What does Maria Georgas have to do with this?
Maria Georgas was a fan-favorite contestant on Joey Graziadei’s season of The Bachelor. She revealed on the Call Her Daddy podcast that she was supposed to be this season’s Bachelorette lead, but she backed out and was replaced with Jenn.
Well apparently, after Devin broke up with Jenn over the phone, she found that he was back on Instagram and following Maria, the would-be Bachelorette. The implication being that when Devin was cast for the show, he was hoping that Maria was going to be the lead. And you better believe Jenn called him out on it.
“Ending the engagement on a phone call, and the next day, I wake up to you following girls on Instagram—not just any girl, but Maria,” Jenn said to Devin on “After the Final Rose.” “Not only is that so disrespectful to everything that we had shared together, I just don’t understand it.”
But have Maria and Devin hung out?
The conspiracy theories say yes, but there have also been rumors that Maria is dating another one of Jenn’s eliminated contestants, Jeremy Simon. None of this has been proven, confirmed, or denied by any of the principle participants.
It does look like Maria and Jeremy have hung out, as is common among former Bachelor stars, and Jenn also called Devin out for going clubbing with Jeremy after the show ended. This has lead some fans to suspect that Devin was hanging out with both Jeremy and Maria behind Jenn’s back.
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What else are the fans saying?
To say that the fans are upset would be an understatement. And they’re not just mad at Devin. They’re also calling out production for “re-traumatizing” Jenn on “After the Final Rose.” Redditors on the r/Bachelorette and r/BachelorNation subreddits have been accusing producers and the franchise for mistreating the lead, saying things like, “The franchise set Jenn up to fail,” and “It’s so wrong to make Jenn watch her proposal to a terrible human[.…] like Jenn is hurting don’t torture her just for the purpose of your TV show.” Some have posted about submitting audience feedback and some have vowed to quit watching the show altogether.
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Reactions on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok have been similar. “That sinister spectacle of a finale you made of #TheBachelorette was disgusting,” one person tweeted, alongside a lengthy open letter to ABC. Another fan tweeted that the finale was “one of the cruelest things they’ve ever done.” On the official Bachelorette Instagram, one commenter demanded, “Apologize for how you treated our lead Jen. She deserves a vacay too. First Asian American & POC was just ridiculed on TV for ratings!” Another agreed, “Yall did her so dirty. There is no reason you guys showed us the engagement she obviously didn’t want to.”
Like I said. Messy.
