A sliding doors moment. Bachelor Nation may have just learned that Chrishell Stause was in talks to be the Bachelorette back in 2008, but season 4 lead DeAnna Pappas already knew.
“Graham Bunn was on my season of The Bachelorette and apparently he only went on the show because he thought Chrishell was going to be the Bachelorette,” Pappas, 38, dished on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “I guess they had dated before and then they broke up and he was going to try and win her back. And then I guess he got there, and it was me instead.”
ABC executive Robert Mills revealed last month that he was sold on Stause, 39, who was on All My Children at the time, for the season 4 role, but everything changed after the season 11 finale of The Bachelor.
“She would never remember this. I’ve actually had lunch with Chrishell, this was about 10 or 11 years ago, to talk about being the Bachelorette. … I was convinced, I was like, ‘This is the Bachelorette.’ Then Brad Womack’s season aired and that’s when he let go of both girls and one of them was DeAnna,” Mills said on the “Viall Files” podcast, noting that Ellen DeGeneres called the network to campaign for Pappas to get the role.
He continued, “This was before we even said we were going to do a Bachelorette. At that point, it was like, ‘How do we not [pick DeAnna]?’”
Stause, for her part, responded to Us Weekly’s Instagram about Mills’ revelation, writing, “Of course I remember [this lunch]! So funny to think about now.”
The Selling Sunset star was linked to Bunn before and after his pursuit of Pappas’ heart.
“We had dated off and on before that, but the timing wasn’t right. We stopped seeing each other in December [2007],” Bunn said in a 2008 interview at the premiere of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with Stause. “I’m very grateful and very flattered to be with this beautiful lady. I’m the luckiest guy in the world. She’s just amazing.”
Stause and Bunn split for good in 2009. While she went on to marry Justin Hartley in 2017 (the pair filed for divorce in 2019), he was linked to Michelle Money on season 2 of Bachelor Pad and AshLee Frazier on Bachelor in Paradise season 1.
