The announcement for the next Bachelor is quickly approaching, but contender Mike Johnson does not believe the odds are in his favor. He thinks his Bachelorette costar Peter Weber has a better shot at securing the role due to the franchise’s past casting practices.
“I think the Bachelor would be Peter,” Johnson, 31, told Entertainment Tonight. “Based on [the fact that] history repeats itself. I think Peter looks the part … when he gets a 5 o’clock shadow, he looks good too.”
Johnson, who competed alongside Weber for Hannah Brown’s heart on the most recent season of The Bachelorette, continued to sing the pilot’s praises, adding: “I think that Peter’s family is terrific. I’ve hung out with his brother, he’s awesome. His mom, you know, he’s got a little Spanish flair. I think that Peter and his family are just great.”
Despite the Texas native’s love for Weber, he still regards him as the “safe” casting selection.
While Johnson suspects his chances of being named the Bachelor are slim, a source exclusively revealed to Us Weekly that he is definitely in the running for the coveted spot. “Mike is being seriously considered to be Bachelor, and producers have brought up his name a lot to potential contestants,” the insider shared with Us.
The Air Force vet spoke with Us at July’s “Men Tell All” special about his thoughts on becoming the franchise’s first black Bachelor. He said the possibility made him “feel awesome.”
“It puts a smile on my face to know that people want me to find the love that I want so dearly,” Johnson told Us at the taping. “I’m, like, super humble in the sense of I shy it down quite often, but being completely transparent, it makes me feel amazing that people would even consider that for me.”
Johnson, Weber and Tyler Cameron had been rumored as potential candidates from Brown’s season of The Bachelorette to succeed Colton Underwood as Bachelor. However, host Chris Harrison noted that Cameron’s odds were slim after he was spotted on a string of dates with supermodel Gigi Hadid. (He first went out with Hadid to Brooklyn’s Dumbo House days after his overnight date with Brown on August 1.)
“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,” Harrison, 48, told Entertainment Tonight earlier this month. “If that’s what you want to do right now, I don’t blame him. He’s probably enjoying life really, really well.”
Harrison noted that Cameron’s post-Bachelorette journey made him “not someone we’re going to want to have as our Bachelor,” adding, “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.”
