Not worth a fence jump? The Bachelor alum Demi Burnett admitted in a new interview that she wanted ABC to choose someone other than Colton Underwood as the lead for the season she competed on.
“At first, I didn’t know. I was kinda like — I hate to say that I was bummed about it, but I kinda was,” the interior designer, 25, said on the Wednesday, May 6, episode of Big Brother alums Nicole Franzel and Victor Arroyo’s “Coco Caliente” podcast. “I just wanted it to be anyone else.”
Burnett confessed that she had secretly been hoping Jason Tartick would lead season 23 of the ABC reality dating series. The banker, 31, became a fan favorite after competing alongside Underwood, 28, on Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette in 2018. (Tartick is now dating former Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe.)
“I think at the time, I was probably like — this guy Jason was, like, the hot commodity,” she recalled. “I think that I wanted it to be him.”
However, the “Big Demi Energy” podcast host grew to like the former football player over time as she got to know him better.
“I love Colton,” she told Franzel, 27, and Arroyo, 29. “He’s a great guy.”
Burnett finished in ninth place on Underwood’s season in 2019, and he ultimately ended up choosing Cassie Randolph as his winner. The Red Oak, Texas, native later competed on Bachelor in Paradise season 6, where she rekindled her romance with ex-girlfriend Kristian Haggerty. They got engaged during the finale, but called it quits that October.
Burnett moved on with singer Slater Davis in February after her Paradise costar Katie Morton introduced the pair.
“I’ve never met anyone like him,” she said on Wednesday’s podcast. “He’s, like, really, really special, and anyone who meets him, like, you just fall in love with him. He just has this amazing energy about him and he makes everybody laugh and he’s, like, infectious and you just want to be in a good mood around him because he’s just so, like, joyful.”
The reality star went on to say that she is “obsessed” with her new boyfriend, adding, “He, like, makes me feel so special in that moment and I’m like, ‘Thank you, I just needed that.’ … I can’t imagine life without him now. It’s so weird.”
