The Bachelor season 24, which will star Peter Weber, could have looked very different. Weber’s fellow Bachelorette season 15 contestant Tyler Cameron said he was asked to be the Bachelor but turned it down.
“Yeah, it was something we talked about,” Cameron, 26, told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, September 24. “Where I was at at my life … I just didn’t think it was where I wanted to be. My heart wasn’t in it.”
The general contractor also said that he declined the opportunity because he was seeing other people. “You shouldn’t go on the show if you have a girlfriend … if you’re dating somebody or seeing somebody,” he said, possibly alluding to Gigi Hadid.
Plus, his father’s health had taken a turn for the worse, which made Cameron “nervous and scared.”
“I just I sat on it, thought about it, and my heart wasn’t in it,” he explained. “And that’s something you have to be fully invested in. I was on the other side of it as a contestant, which is a much easier role than being the lead of the show.”
Happily, Cameron says his father has been “bouncing back” recently. “Every time I call him, he’s been sounding good, so that’s awesome,” he added.
Cameron, who came in second place on Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette, was spotted with Hadid last month just days after he had an overnight date at Brown’s house following the Bachelorette finale.
At the time, Bachelor host Chris Harrison threw cold water on the idea of Cameron as the next Bachelor, telling Entertainment Tonight, “If Tyler is bouncing around from girl to girl and loving the life and enjoying the limelight, which, by the way, good on him. That’s fine. If that’s what you want to do right now, I don’t blame him.”
“He’s probably enjoying life really, really well — but that’s not someone we’re going to want to have as our Bachelor or Bachelorette,” added the host, 48. “So, it’s about sincerity. It’s about where you are in your life. And if that’s where he is in his life, then he’s not the guy for us.”
Harrison announced Weber, Brown’s third-place suitor, as the next Bachelor on September 17. The Bachelor season 24 will premiere on ABC in January.
