The 20th season of The Bachelorette premieres in the US tonight (June 26). This season features Charity Lawson, a 27-year-old family therapist from Columbus, Georgia. It isn’t her first time on the show—she placed fourth on the 27th season of The Bachelor, the dating-for-keeps reality show that led to a Bachelorette spinoff. Let’s scroll through the history of one of the longest-running American reality show franchises, filled with twists and turns, as reality TV shows tend to go.
Mike Fleiss had just wrapped up the show Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?, which aired on Fox and featured 50 women who competed to be married to a wealthy man whom they had never met, with a wedding performed at the end of the program. But it turns out that the groom, Rick Rockwell, wasn’t so wealthy, and the winning contestant did not get a happily-ever-after ending. Instead there was a restraining order between the couple and an annulled marriage. The show sparked backlash from feminist and conservative groups.
So, Fleiss pivoted—slightly. In an interview with HuffPost Entertainment in 2015, he said he wanted to create a show in a “responsible, relatable romantic fashion.” Enter The Bachelor, which debuted on March 25 on ABC. The show typically starts off with 25 contestants, from which the Bachelor is expected to select a wife. The first episode starred Alex Michel, a Stanford Business School graduate, who gave his final rose to the contestant Amanda Marsh. But he did not end up marrying her.
The Bachelorette airs for the first time, with a woman in the lead role. The starring bachelorette was Trista Rehn, a 30-year-old physical therapist and former Miami Heat dancer. She also was a contestant in the first season of The Bachelor. She would find love on the show, marrying a 29-year-old firefighter named Ryan Sutter. Theirs was the franchise’s first televised wedding. Two decades later, Rehn is still married to her man.
It was bound to happen—on the 15th season of The Bachelor, Brad Womack got down to his final rose but was unable to choose between either Jenni Croft or DeAnna Pappas. It’s the first and only time, so far, a bachelor has chosen no one. Womack would get another chance, though, on season 15; this time he chose a final contestant but the relationship wouldn’t last.
Sean Lowe came onto the show for the 17th season of The Bachelor and did the unusual. Nearly a decade after his season, Lowe continues to be the only Bachelor still married to his partner.
Since the debuts of both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, the leads typically have been white. It would take 15 years before Rachel Lindsey, at that time a 32-year-old attorney from Dallas, to be cast as the first Black Bachelorette. But since the airing of her season, Lindsey has been a vocal critic of the show, saying the series has reinforced racial stereotypes. In 2021, The Bachelor had its first black male lead, a former NCAA basketball player named Matt James.
It’s hard to find advertising revenue numbers for the “The Bachelor” franchise. But the original show brought in about $86 million in revenue, CNN reported in 2017, citing Kantar Media data. The Bachelorette reportedly earned almost as much. The franchise also has had many other spinoffs, including After Paradise and The Bachelor Winter Games as well as over 20 international editions.
In addition to mainly featuring white leads, the franchise also has largely featured heterosexual couples. The franchise’s first gay couple—two, white blonde women—got together in Bachelor in Paradise, a “Bachelor” spinoff.
Chris Harrison, who has been the host of both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette from the start, makes his exit. He left the franchise in 2021 after defending a previous contestant’s racist behavior. Harrison reportedly received a $10 million payout.
The newest season of The Bachelorette is a big deal for two reasons. First, the show with a women lead has been running for two decades now. It’s also the first time that creator Mike Fleiss won’t be involved in the show. Fleiss left just as the filming for The Bachelorette was getting started, and amid a steady decline in viewership of The Bachelorette in recent years.
The show has managed to launch new careers for a handful of contestants. Real estate agent and former Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher, for instance, launched a CNBC series called Cash Pad. Other former Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants have gone on to start podcasts and to become influencers with huge social media followings.
