Bad news for ‘The Bachelorette’ fans: These are possible reasons why you won’t see a new season in 2025
After season 21 of ‘The Bachelorette’ came to a dramatic conclusion, the reality dating show has now been placed on pause.
As the latest season of The Bachelor builds up to its end-of-March finale, there is uncertainty over one of the dating game show’s chief spin-offs. That’s because ABC, the network behind the Bachelor franchise, recently decided not to air a 22nd season of The Bachelorette this summer.
The news, which ABC has not yet made official, was first reported by Deadline in early February. Citing insiders, the television journalist Peter White revealed that The Bachelorette “has not been canceled and will likely come back”, but is not expected to be broadcast any time in 2025.
This is not the first time that The Bachelorette, a show in which a woman chooses from a cast of male suitors vying for her heart, has gone on a break. As pointed out by White, the program did not air in either 2006 or 2007.
When was the latest season of The Bachelorette? What happened?
A show that debuted in 2003 - a year after the creation of its male-led counterpart The Bachelor - The Bachelorette last hit U.S. screens from July to September last year.
Broadcast across 10 episodes, season 21 starred 26-year-old Jenn Tran, who finally picked 28-year-old Devin Strader from the 25-man field of contestants.
Tran and Strader got engaged after each proposed to the other - but their romance was short-lived. During the live section of the season finale, it emerged that Strader had broken up with Tran soon after filming wrapped.
Shot in front of a studio audience, September’s “After the Final Rose” live show saw Tran come face to face with Strader for the first time since their break-up. She took him to task not only for ending their relationship over the phone, but also for taking to social media right after their split to follow another woman from the Bachelor universe.
Describing herself as “heartbroken”, Tran laid into Strader for having “one foot out the door” throughout their relationship. “You were never fully in the engagement, whereas I was," she said. “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I wanted to have a family with you.”
Strader told Tran: “When we left the show, I had a lot of doubts. And regretfully, and sadly, I suppressed those feelings.”
“I have to make room for forgiveness”
The day after the live show aired, Tran adopted a more conciliatory tone with Strader in an Instagram post. “My heart is heavy grieving but I have to make room for forgiveness and keep the main thing the main thing which is ultimately my heart,” she wrote.
“While emotions were high on stage, at the end of the day, I will always have love for the person I fell in love with and I am choosing to wish him the best in his journey of life and will always root for him.”
So why isn’t there going to be a Bachelorette season 22 for now?
It has been suggested that ABC’s decision to pause The Bachelorette may have come in the wake of the criticism levelled at show runners over the degree of sensitivity they displayed towards Tran in “After the Final Rose”.
“Many fans were shocked that ABC would bring Jenn onto the live finale to air out what seemed to be one of the most painful times in her life,” the USA Today Network journalists Lianna Norman and Samantha Neely explain. “Some called it exploitative.”
On her Reality Tea website, the reality-TV expert Elizabeth Cheema adds: “They had her watch a clip of her proposal to Devin. The whole time, the camera in the lower corner showed Jenn in tears as no one comforted her. Jenn didn’t get the most fair treatment as The Bachelorette and viewers definitely noticed.”
It is also possible The Bachelorette has been placed on hiatus simply because, in the ever-growing Bachelor universe, room had to be made for one of its sister shows.
In addition to The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, the franchise now also includes The Golden Bachelor and The Golden Bachelorette - not to mention Bachelor in Paradise, which was absent in 2024 but is expected to return in the summer, when The Bachelorette would normally go out.
Cheema feels this is the likeliest explanation. Since the addition of new spin-offs to the franchise, she reasons, “there aren’t as many open slots for seasons”.
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