Brad Womack may have had two opportunities to find love as the Bachelor, but his final rose never lasted — if he gave it out at all.
ABC first made Brad the lead for season 11 of the dating series in 2007. During the finale, he made history as the only Bachelor to walk away from his final two — DeAnna Pappas and Jenni Croft — and leave alone.
“I was the girl that everyone thought he was going to choose,” DeAnna told Us Weekly exclusively on our “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast in June 2020. “And then at the last minute, he decided not to choose anyone and that really shifted the way the franchise works. … I was so confused, I don’t know why he did all of this, but now it means so different to me because had he not done that, it would have changed the path of life that brought me to where I am now.”
More than three years after he said goodbye to DeAnna and Jenni, the network brought Brad back for season 15 of The Bachelor. DeAnna told Us that she was “mind-blown” when her ex agreed to be the lead again.
“He had always said to me he would never do it again. He was like, ‘I am so glad to be done with this. I wouldn’t want to do this again. I wouldn’t put my family through this,’” she told Us. “And then, sure enough, I found out he was doing it again because the producers called. In the first episode of his second season, they had Jenni and I come back because we were engaged, both of us, you know, oddly at the same time to be married to someone else. I guess in a way to bring it all full circle. … He went from being the most hated Bachelor to the most loved Bachelor.”
Brad, who revealed on the show that he went to therapy in between seasons to work on his commitment issues, found a connection with Emily Maynard and proposed to the Southern Belle during the 2011 finale. Their engagement was short-lived, however, and they announced their split four months after the show finished airing.
As ABC revisited Brad’s seasons of The Bachelor in July 2020 as part of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!, the bar owner confirmed that he would never look for love on the reality show again.
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“I will not do it a third time,” he said in a sneak peek for the episode. “I promise you.”
Listen to Here For the Right Reasons to get inside scoop about the Bachelor franchise and exclusive interviews from contestants!
Scroll through for an update on the biggest names from season 11 and 15 of The Bachelor:
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