Jenn Tran was announced as the next Bachelorette, but Nick Viall revealed that Maria Georgas was originally chosen.
Jenn Tran is the first Asian-American lead on The Bachelorette Season 21, but her announcement was unexpected for fans of the show.
Viewers wondered if The Bachelor Season 28 runner-up Daisy Kent backed out, and wanted fan-favorite Maria Georgas to be picked as the lead.
On Nick Viall’s podcast The Viall Files, he revealed that Maria was allegedly supposed to be the Bachelorette, but it was changed to Jenn last-minute. He also said that Daisy was given an offer after Maria declined.
“They didn’t do Jenn any favors by not focusing on her story. Now, I was told by someone who was told that as of a week ago, Maria was the Bachelorette,” Nick explained.
“Two hours before we’re recording this, I called a friend and they were like, ‘Yeah, so it’s not her. It’s Jenn.’ I was surprised,” he added.
“But I heard Maria was the choice and they couldn’t make it work for reasons that are unclear. But I could be wrong. I’m sure Maria will be asked about the process.”
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On Reddit, Bachelor fans reacted to the information Nick shared about the new Bachelorette lead on his podcast.
“I wonder if the difficulties with Maria doing it were due to her being Canadian. She would have to spend a lot of time promoting stateside which the visa may not permit, and if the leads get paid to do it then she would need a work authorization visa too which could take a while to process,” one fan speculated.
“I feel like Maria now has a small celebrity status and now is not the time to be tied down to a man. She’s just getting started on social media and hopefully she’ll end up on some netflix show soon,” another fan chimed in.
“It seems to be fairly common knowledge now from various sources that Daisy, Maria and Rachel all turned it down,” a third fan commented.
While fans may be upset that Maria isn’t the lead for The Bachelorette Season 21, they might see her on the upcoming season of Bachelor In Paradise later this year.