No more roses for Hannah Brown! The former Bachelorette was approached to be season 16’s leading lady but decided she should focus on “moving forward” with her life.
“ABC was after Hannah to be the Bachelorette again, asking her for months,” a source tells Us Weekly exclusively. “They really wanted her to do it but, obviously, it didn’t ultimately work out.”
The Alabama native, 25, was the show’s lead for season 15 of The Bachelorette in 2019, when she picked Jed Wyatt, but by the time the “After the Final Rose” special aired, they had called off their engagement after she learned that he’d had a girlfriend back home when he left to appear on the show.
When it came to the upcoming season of the ABC show, Brown chose to move away from the dating series and focus on other aspects of her life.
“It wasn’t just about the money, there were specific things about the contract too,” the insider explains. “Hannah had the biggest season and was hugely popular and so it made sense for them to ask her.”
After being approached in December, the Dancing With the Stars champion “was close to doing it at certain points,” according to the source, but “ultimately the deal didn’t make sense for her.”
“She loves Bachelor Nation and she never wants to disappoint them, but it just didn’t make sense for her. She’s moving forward with her life and career,” the insider adds.
On Monday, March 2, ABC announced that Clare Crawley would be stepping into Brown’s shoes as the newest Bachelorette for the franchise.
“So unexpected,” Crawley, 38, told Good Morning America’s Lara Spencer on Monday. “I cannot believe it. I mean, six years later. What is happening?”
The California native first competed for love on Juan Pablo Galavis’ season of The Bachelor in 2014. She later appeared on Bachelor in Paradise that same year but quit during week 5.
Crawley then rejoined BIP the following summer, where she was eliminated in week 3, before competing on The Bachelor Winter Games in 2018.
Although the hairstylist left single, she got engaged to Bachelorette Canada’s Benoit Beausejour-Savard from Winter Games. The two called it quits in April 2018.
Before the announcement, a source told Us that “this season’s pick will be a huge surprise to fans,” noting that the leading woman was a “complete dark horse.”
