It’s almost time! Matt James was definitely taken on an emotional roller coaster from the moment he arrived in Pennsylvania. During the trailer, he is shown crying on multiple occasions — and they weren’t always sad tears.
“I got emotional because it was real for me. It’s what I would expect out of myself,” the season 25 lead, 29, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the Monday, January 4 Bachelor premiere. “[It happens] when you become emotionally attached to the way that I did and dive into the conversations that we did.”
He noted that he had a “great” group of women and he knew he would most likely have feelings for multiple people.
“I think [falling for multiple women is] just something that comes with the territory because when people are sharing these things with you and you’re sharing things with them, it’s only natural that over time you’re going to form some type of feeling for that person,” the North Carolina native explained. “How you choose to act on that is another thing, but the raw feeling of being attracted, interested, seeing that person as someone that you could be with — there was a lot of that.”
James, who was originally set to be part of Clare Crawley‘s season of The Bachelorette before being named the Bachelor, added that he learned a lot about himself during the process, especially with a great cast.
“[I learned] I’m capable of loving,” the ABC Food Tours founder said. “A lot of things in my life had turned me off to the ideas of a conventional relationship — just seeing how they’ve played out in my parents’ life and in my family. So it was very refreshing to be around this caliber of women.”
Speaking of the ladies, James couldn’t compliment the contestants enough.
“I’m undeserving,” the realtor shared with Us. “It’s just such a great group of women, like, women that you would never think would be single. That’s why I was so skeptical coming in, because it’s like, you don’t think the type of woman exists that I was interacting with and that were part of this experience. So, it made my life and decision-making that much more difficult because you’re having to send home incredible women.”
Season 25 of The Bachelor premieres on ABC Monday, January 4, at 8 p.m. ET.
