Ladies and gentlemen, buckle your seatbelts. In a shocking, albeit anticlimactic, turn of events no one saw coming, the oh-so-attractive Grant Ellis has officially been announced as the next leading man of The Bachelor, and his season is certain to be a wild ride (in true Bachelor Nation fashion).
For those who are unfamiliar with Grant, he is a 30-year-old basketball player turned day trader from Newark, New Jersey, as well as “a mama’s boy who loves poetry and reading” and admits that “he’s here to find the love of his life” (according to his official Bachelorette biography). Despite having quite the connection with leading lady Jenn Tran on The Bachelorette season 21 — even telling her that he was falling in love with her just moments before his untimely exit — he was eliminated during Monday’s episode, Aug. 12, shattering the hearts of individuals all across America.
Sweethearts Grant Ellis and Spencer Conley — as well as early-in-the-evening boot Sam McKinney — failed to receive a rose from leading lady Jenn Tran during episode 6, ultimately leaving the show in shambles. While he was certainly heartbroken, Grant’s untimely exit was nothing out of the ordinary for a Bachelorette contestant. Well, that is until the episode came to a close…
Leading up to episode 6, Bachelor Nation know-it-all Reality Steve tweeted that the next Bachelor would be announced that evening after the show, ultimately causing a great deal of chatter via X:
“The next Bachelor is being revealed tonight after show airs on East Coast. I’m assuming it’s gonna be online since there’s no live portion of the show tonight. I have no idea who it is. I’ll see if I can find out before tonight. This is all news to me today.”
Naturally, fans took to the comment section to guess who it would be, but it’s safe to say that nobody had Grant on their radar:
“Maybe Brett since there was so much backlash when they finally had someone that wasn’t the picture-perfect skinny buff guy, but got sent home first night!”
“I bet it’s Greg Grippo”
“Austin left last week…”
As teased by Reality Steve, due to there being no live portion of the show, the next Bachelor was revealed to the public after the latest episode of The Bachelorette season 21. With no discussion on our television screens — and with the announcement being made via the media instead — the entire announcement was, as fans are saying, #AwkwardAF.
Just moments after the show wrapped — at 10:00pm ET, to be exact — news started flooding in via outlets like People, Us Weekly, and USA Today that Grant would be the next Bachelor. While fans of The Bachelorette season 21 are pleased by this pick, Bachelor Nation could not help but wonder why the announcement was so nonchalant, considering the next lead is usually announced during a television special like the “Men Tell All” or “After the Final Rose.”
In fact, the Bachelor franchise did not share anything regarding the oh-so-exciting news until later in the evening, leaving Bachelor Nation to wonder why Grant is facing so much disrespect already as the Bachelor. Given how amazing of an individual he is, why did he not get his time to shine like all of his predecessors?
Perhaps he will get his big moment during the “Men Tell All,” but the only way to find out is to catch brand new episodes of The Bachelorette season 21 every Monday on ABC. With only four men remaining — Jeremy Simon, Jonathon Johnson, Marcus Shoberg, and Devin Strader — the stakes are at an all-time high!