Viewers first met Hannah Brown during Colton Underwood’s season of “The Bachelor”2019 Garnering a wide fanbase and capturing America’s heart on the dating show, the spunky, faith-based pageant queen eventually landed the lead role of “The Bachelorette”Season 15.
“I don’t think I ever felt worthy enough to be ‘The Bachelorette,’”Brown tells VarietyZoom in action, a recent conservation she conducted from her L.A. home.
The reality TV star in 2019 was a native of Alabama. She moved to California, where she now resides permanently. Brown is one of the most recognizable Bachelor Nation alumni with over 2.5 million Instagram followers. She has been busy since her time on the dating show. “Dancing with the Stars.”
She was the leader “The Bachelorette,”The ratings went up. The finale was one of the most dramatic in recent memory. Brown accepted an on-camera proposition from Jed Wyatt. However, he later discovered that he was already in a relationship. This forced Brown to cancel the engagement before the final episode aired nationally.
Despite her popularity, Brown faced the consequences and responsibility of having the spotlight on her when she became embroiled in controversy in 2020 for using the N-word while singing a song on social media.
“It was my own white fragility that was the issue,”Brown.
Brown now reflects on these experiences in her book. “God Bless This Mess,”HarperCollins has published the book. It is available for purchase today. Brown’s memoir explores trauma, toxic relationships and mental health. She also discusses the men she dated. “The Bachelorette,”She is open to sex, shame, and her Christian faith.
Hannah Brown opens up about her experiences. Variety about the most revealing parts of her book…
She knew that none the contestants on her show were from her own season. “the one”
After the limo entry on night one of her season, “The Bachelorette,”Brown said she knew her future husband from the beginning “was not here,”According to her, she was looking for a sign but never got it. She tried to trust the process.
“I’ve lived a life where I want to be the good girl,”Brown. “The right thing on that show is to find a person. I wasn’t grounded enough to listen to that immediate instinct that was true all along.”
Brown didn’t expect for so much of her sex life with Peter Weber to air on national TV
With her faith on full display, Brown’s sex life became a major talking point during her season of “The Bachelorette.”Interviews were conducted at the time and she talked about her desire to normalize sex and faith.
Brown claimed that Weber and she had sex a lot during the season’s in-studio finale in 2019. “I was a little dishonest about something,”Brown spoke in front of the studio audience before adding: “I did say there’s something that Peter and I did twice. It was actually four times.”
But now, reflecting back, Brown admits she wasn’t prepared to take the weight on her shoulders of publicly leaning into sex and religion.
“I think the show has always eluded to the fact that people were getting intimate, but never explicitly saying with who. And that is what I believed it would be,”Brown. “To be so publicly exposed and to have to take a stance was hard. I was proud that I stood up for myself, but in the same breath, I don’t know if I was ready to take this, ‘I’m sex positive and I have sex’ take.”
She continues, “I feel a little hurt from it all.”
The Christian community shamed Brown for his premarital sex.
The biggest themes in Brown’s season of “The Bachelorette”Both religion and sex are involved in Brown’s story, where she shares details about her Christian faith. She faced swift backlash when it was revealed that she had been having premarital sex on the show with Wyatt, Weber and Weber.
“That was one of the biggest things that I had to heal from, just the shame of it all,”Brown. “I’m having people tell me I’m a bad representative of Christianity and calling me all these names — it really made me question my faith a lot, but it was all part of the journey that God had for me.”
She felt like she was Tyler Cameron’s “bench girl”
Brown and former star of “The Bachelor,” Matt James, who was introduced to Bachelor Nation through his good friend, Tyler Cameron, the runner-up from Brown’s season of “Bachelorette.”
Brown, who was the show’s runner-up in the series, opens up about their relationship. She admits that she and Cameron tried to find a relationship.
“With a lot of these men — with Peter and Tyler — I thought that they loved me, but then when it came to real life, I don’t know if anybody loved me,”Brown. “It was all bull-crap and that really hurt. When these men could finally have me, it felt like they didn’t want to anymore in real life. I thought, ‘Did they just want ‘The Bachelorette’ and not Hannah?’”
She continues, “Tyler would always say, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ As a woman, you want somebody to choose you and not just feel like you’re waiting. And I allowed that to happen for a little while, and that’s why I call myself the bench girl.”
Brown’s aunt and cousins were murdered when she was young
In Brown’s book, she opens up for the first time about the trauma of losing family members at a young age. Tragically, her aunts and cousins were killed during her childhood.
“There were moments when I tried to talk about it. When people didn’t receive it, I saw it as, ‘Oh, they can’t handle it,’”Brown. “Because of that, I repressed it for so long and I am now finally allowing myself to talk about how scared I’ve been my entire life from that.”
It was her N-word social media controversy that taught her a lot.
After a video went viral of Brown singing the N-word on her Instagram Live to DaBaby’s “Rockstar,”Brown was unable to get any endorsements on social media.
“I take full accountability for what I did and the hurt I caused,”Brown now states. “I always knew what I did was wrong…saying the N-word in any capacity, I knew was wrong.”
Brown was unsure how to deal with the situation. She explains. “I wasn’t really able to have this conversation because I would be the white girl that is crying and that’s not what needed to be done in that moment.”
Brown continues: “Some people will still be upset with me and I understand. I just have to continue transforming as a person and learning on my own.”
Harper