There’s a reason for everything! Chris Harrison provided a perfectly valid explanation as to why The Bachelorette concluded on Tuesday, December 22, without an After the Final Rose special.
“It pains me there’s no AFR live special this #TheBachelorette season,” the longtime Bachelor host, 49, tweeted on Tuesday. “Due to being pushed into the holidays and the difficulty of bringing people safely together during this time, it just wasn’t possible. But hopefully, we’ll be back for #TheBachelor.”
Following an unprecedented season shot in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Bachelorette Tayshia Adams got engaged to Zac Clark. Before their romantic proposal, the former phlebotomist, 30, referred to her now-fiancé as “the best man I could ever dream of” and called him her “person.”
Since Adams was certain that the 36-year-old New Jersey native was The One, she chose to forgo her final one-on-one date with runner-up Ben Smith. “It’s a really heavy week and I care about you so much. And I just feel like my heart is with somebody else,” she explained to the 29-year-old Army vet.
“I don’t want you to ever second-guess anything and me giving you that rose the other night was because I truly, truly wanted to give us another chance because I saw something,” she continued. “I just feel like we missed out on a little bit of time that was very monumental.”
Season 16 of The Bachelorette originally featured Clare Crawley in the leading role. When filming began in July after being delayed amid the COVID-19 crisis, the 39-year-old hairdresser quickly fell for contestant Dale Moss. After the duo left the show as an engaged couple within the first two weeks, Adams stepped in to replace the Bachelor Winter Games alum.
As the second Black Bachelorette lead, Adams admitted to feeling “pressure” to make properly represent the Black community. “I was really cognizant of it,” the reality star, who is also part Mexican, told HipHollywood on Monday, December 21. “I think I got really emotional really early on because I knew the magnitude of my platform, and I knew what I was representing.”
The Bachelor in Paradise alum added, “I think the reason why I got so overwhelmed was because I wanted to make people proud. I just know that the best way to do that is to be myself and that’s all I did, which is why I am so proud of, like, the way I am represented.”
While Adams and Crawley found their happily ever afters this season, Bachelor Nation devotees will soon get to see how Matt James’ love story unfolds on The Bachelor. Harrison recently spoke to Us Weekly exclusively about what’s to come, noting that “it’s a wild ride” and that the 29-year-old “went through the wringer.”
Season 25 of The Bachelor premieres on ABC Monday, January 4, at 8 p.m. ET.
