As she gears up for the release of God Bless This Messy Journal, the follow-up to her best-selling memoir, Hannah Brown is reflecting on the response to God Bless This Mess.
“I was super grateful for all the support that I was given for the book. I was really proud of just the response that I got from the people who it really helped. There was a lot of talk about the book, and I knew there would but, overall, I feel like if people actually read the book, it was about my experience,” the 27-year-old author said exclusively on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “And I think when people can pull little excerpts out of a book, it can be taken the wrong way. I never meant to hurt anybody in writing the book. It was really about my experience and taking ownership for how I played a role in every relationship, every opportunity, every obstacle that was in my way. I had a lot to learn and a lot to grow from. And what I’ve loved about the response is that there’s so many people that are able to go on their own journey through the similarities of my life experiences and others.”
The November 2021 release documented Brown’s life, including her stint as the season 15 Bachelorette — and her overnight date with Peter Weber. She also revealed that the twosome secretly hooked up when his season of the show was airing months later.
“I did not [talk to her after the book came out]. I reached out to her, I received no comment [back] and, you know, it is what is. I personally, I wouldn’t have done something like that,” the season 24 Bachelor said on “Here for the Right Reasons” earlier this year. “If two people have a private situation and talk and they say that they’re gonna keep it private, I just keep it private. I don’t know — she now has done that to me on two occasions where she said she’s not gonna say anything. And then she says something.”
Brown also addressed the end of her relationship with runner-up Tyler Cameron, who she claimed texted her “If you rock with me, you rock with me” as their final exchange. “I’ve got receipts, too,” the model said on “The Bellas Podcast” podcast when the book came out.
“I honestly can’t remember what their reactions were. It’s been so long,” Brown told Us of her exes. “I don’t think either one of them probably read my book. I think it’s hard when it’s just taking little excerpts out or, like, the big moments that I’m sure if they haven’t read the book would, maybe, be upsetting, but it really wasn’t about that at all. It was about the journey of me processing everything that happened and my role in it and how I can be better moving forward. It was not intended to be personal or hurtful at all. I respect how they’ve all moved forward and I’m gonna continue doing that too.”
One of the ways the Alabama native was able to move forward was through journaling, something she hopes her fans will take up with her April 12 release.
“I think that’s one of the things that intimidates people about journaling. They think they have to write in it every day, but I think it’s a tool for you to use on those days that you really need to journal,” she told Us. “The way that I’ve even formatted this journal for the user [is] to help them learn how to journal. There’s no right way, but the mistake you can make is not [being] honest with yourself. And sometimes learning to be honest with yourself is something that you need your handheld to do. That’s kind of what I did with the two parts of the journal is I wanted to show people how you can use your journal as a tool to kind of get through those hard moments.”
Brown also enlisted her therapist to help her with writing the journal.
“I wanted to bring my therapist along to help me make sure that I was crafting prompts that would help an individual during times where they needed to learn the correct way from a professional — those prompts that will allow them to get down to what’s actually going on,” she said. “What are the emotions that are actually there vs. sometimes when we stay very surface level. I think we all tend to do that when there’s layers that are a little bit painful underneath. So having a therapist be able to help me make sure that I was putting prompts in here that would be actually helpful to move through the pain or even celebrate the joys and great times in life. Just the best way to really be able to help a person write and grow.”
