Two Bachelorettes, several Bachelor in ParadiseA controversy and a fling Chris Harrison later, Ivan HallReflecting on his Bachelor Nation journey Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast.
“It’s been some crazy times — I’ve run the gambit of bachelor experiences, I would say,” the 30-year-old engineer exclusively tells Us.
Fans met Ivan on Clare Crawley’s season of The BacheloretteThe episode was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. “What surprised me actually is the amount of guys that were on my season that never watched one episode,” he explains. “I was like, ‘OK, you’re getting into this big TV show.’ I watched a previous season or two, just to get reacquainted with it. … There was a surprising amount of people who had had no clue what was going on at all. They were like, ‘Oh you get roses?’”
Clare’s stint as the Bachelorette was short-lived as she fell for Dale MossThey engaged on night one, and they remained engaged for the next two weeks.
“We were all, like, had no clue what was coming next,” Ivan recalls. “I think, like, half of us kind of thought it might have even been a Bachelor in ParadiseSituation where they bring in a few girls. [to]La Quinta hosted a little party. Half of us thought it would be just one Bachelorette. We were just trying to figure who it was. It was Tayshia that I had an inkling of, however. I remember when I was going through the casting process, she was one of the people floated around as being the Bachelorette.”
Chris Harrison and Ivan Hall ABC/Craig Sjodin; Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock
Tayshia AdamsClare was indeed replaced by Ivan. Ivan thought it was a good idea to make it to the final three. Brendan MoraisThe front-runner. Zac ClarkHowever, he won and was engaged to Tayshia a year before their November 2021 split.
“I definitely did not realize Zac was gonna win — at all. The person actually that I thought she liked the most going through was Brendan,” Ivan says. “That was, like, the person I was like, ‘OK, she’s looking at him a little differently from what I could gather.’ Other than that, I really wasn’t too worried about anybody else. It was quite a pleasant surprise to see that. I do know Zac’s a great guy. I’ve had great talks with him while I was out there and became a friend, for sure.”
Ivan notes that he had preliminary talks about a potential gig as the Bachelor, but didn’t take them seriously as Matt JamesSeason 26 was already in the works. When it came time to go on Bachelor in Paradise, Ivan made headlines for comments made that he would feel “uncomfortable” if Harrison returned as the host amid his controversial defense of Rachael Kirkconnell’s racially insensitive past.
“Everybody took it as like, ‘Ivan’s not going if Chris Harrison’s the host,’” Ivan recalls on the “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “And that wasn’t, like, it at all. If he was there, I would’ve still shown up. I would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is a little weird.’ And since then, it’s all good. Chris called me. People make mistakes.”
He adds that they had “a good conversation,” telling Us, “I appreciated that from him and it was just a very interesting, weird dynamic in Bachelor Nation at that time.”
Ivan will tell you more about his feelings regarding being under fire for breaking The. Bachelor in Paradise “rules” and his time on the beach, listen to Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast.
