Lucky No. 27? Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar left season 27 of The Bachelor going strong after a series of dramatic endings for the franchise.
The sales exec met the travel nurse during the premiere of his season, which filmed in fall 2022 and started airing in January 2023.
“She is someone [who] from the very beginning had my attention and is someone that shows and exudes kindness and compassion with, like, everyone,” Shallcross told Us Weekly of Biggar in February 2023. “She just kind of, like, brightens up a room.”
He went on to praise Biggar for supporting him amid his battle with COVID-19 during filming.
“And so when she also went to come to be there for me when I was sick alone in my room for days on end, I was like, ‘Wow, she cares, and she really wants to see me and talk to me,’” he continued. “And even though it’s through a door — you’d think it’d be awkward, [but] it wasn’t — it was really special, and it helped me get through that week.”
Shallcross and Biggar hit a rough patch during overnight dates when he confessed that he slept with Gabi Elnicki after previously deciding that he didn’t want to have sex on the show. Elnicki was subsequently angry at the lead for breaking her trust and revealing what happened behind close doors.
“I wasn’t in his shoes at all. And I think he has such an amazing heart and he just didn’t wanna muddy the waters, but obviously, in turn, it did happen,” Biggar told Us of how Shallcross handled fantasy suites. “But I think, like, going in [to] fantasy suite week, I just wanted to use that time — that intimate time — to just get to know each other more on a more emotional level and just see what we’re like off the cameras too. I was just looking forward to that. And, obviously, I was really excited for our day date and the kayak and whatnot, and, obviously, that turned a little sour pretty quick. But, in Bachelor world, things don’t always go as planned, so I don’t think I really went in with a whole lot of expectations. I was just hoping it would go smoothly and we hit a hurdle for sure. But in the end, we came out stronger.”
Shallcross proposed during the March 2023 finale.
“I can no longer say I’m falling in love with you, because, Kaity Lane, I am so in love with you. You are my world,” he said during his proposal. “The love I feel for you is something I could’ve never imagined and something I thought a lot of my life I would never be able to deserve. I love you so much. I love you with all my heart. You’re the face I want to wake up to every morning. I want to go through life with you and only you. Kaity, I want to be with you forever. … You’re the only one I want in my life. … Kaity, will you marry me?”
During After the Final Rose, which aired live in March 2023, the couple revealed their plans to move in together in Austin, Texas — and their hopes to wed in 2025.
Following the finale, Us Weekly asked the pair whether their comment about their future nuptials was legit or just a way to buy them some time as they got to know each other.
“[That’s] funny,” Shallcross responded with a laugh. “No, so the entire show has been very expedited, right? It’s two and a half months and we’ve been living in hiding, essentially, for the past five, six months and everything has been so rushed that it’s finally our time to just relax. There’s some things that we want to do before, you know, taking that leap. We have the rest of our lives to build a family and to get married, to have a house. So it’s like, ‘Let’s just focus on you and I in Austin and the rest will happen.’ And it’s always flexible. There’s nothing contingent.”
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