Bachelor Nation
Has a Family Ever Refused a Hometown Date on ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’?
Hometown dates are a pivotal part of any season of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Generally, hometowns are given to the final 4 contestants, giving the leads a chance to get to know their families ahead of a potential proposal.
Every contestant’s hometown date looks a bit different when it comes to which family members are present for the meeting, but has there ever been a time when someone’s parents refused to participate? Ahead of Season 29 of The Bachelor, this has actually only happened one time! However, Grant Ellis‘ season brought some more unique hometowns.
Melissa Rycroft‘s family on Season 13 of The Bachelor in 2009 did not agree to meet Jason Mesnick on the show. “[Mine are] the only parents in history that didn’t do the hometown,” Rycroft told Us Weekly in 2020. “I remember my dad telling me, ‘You know, my coworkers are going to be watching this.'”
She pointed out that it was “harder to explain” to her family why she was going on a dating show back in 2009 than it is now. “They’re like, ‘This is a stupid reality show, you’re not going to find your person,'” she continued. “[Back then], you didn’t get fame out of it. That’s not why you were going on the show. They were terrified I was going to embarrass them with the hot tub scenes.”
© ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Instead, Rycroft introduced Mesnick to her friends during the hometown date. They must’ve made a good impression, because she was his final pick at the last rose ceremony. The two even got engaged. However, Mesnick ended up dumping Rycroft to pursue runner-up Molly Malaney, whom he’s still married to today.
On Season 21 of The Bachelorette, Marcus Shoberg also didn’t introduce Jenn Tran to his adoptive parents, but this was seemingly due to the fact that he’s just not close with them, as opposed to them refusing to appear on the show. Shoberg was Tran’s runner-up on the show.
Dean Unglert made a different decision on Season 13 of The Bachelorette. Despite having a similarly strained relationship with his father, Unglert decided to introduce Rachel Lindsay to his old man. The date didn’t go great, and ended with tension between Unglert and his father. He was eliminated at the next rose ceremony.
Season 29 featured a contestant in a similar situation to Rycroft. Dina Lupancu’s family “opted out” of meeting the Bachelor. Her father is a minister and did not support the full process of the dating show, specifically the fact that the process was meant to end in an engagement after such a short period of time.
“It just didn’t sit well with him,” Lupancu told Parade. “And also he wasn’t familiar with the dynamics of the show. He didn’t realize that there’s a camera the whole time.” The Chicago native pointed out that she doesn’t belong to her father’s church, but explained that his position of having to keep a “certain example for other families” ultimately turned him off from appearing on the show. Instead of meeting her family, Ellis met Lupancu’s friends, but she was sent home at the rose ceremony.
Meanwhile, Zoe McGrady also did not introduce Ellis to her parents. The model is adopted and estranged from her adoptive parents, so she brought Ellis to meet her sister, aunt, and uncle instead.
The Bachelor, Season 29, Mondays, 8/7c, ABC
