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Days before filming began for season 22 of The Bachelor, new series lead Colton Underwood met his first three contestants during a pretaped segment for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Sydney, Annie and Katie are the first contestants to be named before the reality series’ return in January. ABC typically reveals the full cast about a week before a new season of the show premieres.
On the Thursday episode of Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show, Underwood got to know the women during a game called “Know or Go.” For the game, Underwood and DeGeneres asked the contestants a series of lighthearted questions. When a contestant gave an incorrect answer, she was swiftly eliminated by falling to the floor through a pit, an oft-employed gimmick on DeGeneres’ show. In the end, Annie — whose passion for her seven pet dogs impressed fellow dog lover Underwood — won.
Prior to meeting the three women, Underwood — who competed for Becca Kufrin’s heart on season 14 of The Bachelorette, and ended his relationship with Bachelor alum Tia Booth on the most recent season of Bachelor in Paradise — chatted with DeGeneres about his forthcoming stint on ABC’s long-running dating competition series.
“I know how it was to go through Bachelorette and go through Paradise and know how good it was for me to continue to grow,” he said. “So I knew the experience I had prior to it, and I was super excited because it’s helped me grow as a person.”
Underwood, who revealed to Kufrin that he was a virgin on The Bachelorette, also spoke about his feelings going into The Bachelor‘s Fantasy Suite dates. “I’m looking forward to the Fantasy Suites because you could do more in the Fantasy Suites than just have sex,” the former NFL player, 26, told DeGeneres, before joking: “We could play board games. We could hang out.”
Earlier this month, Bachelor host Chris Harrison appeared on Live With Kelly and Ryan, where he revealed that Underwood’s virginity will serve as a storyline on the show. As viewers will recall, his confession to Kufrin became a major talking point both on- and off-camera.
“That’s going to be one of the storylines,” Harrison confirmed when speaking to Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. “How does he deal with it? How do the women deal with this? It’s kind of a great social issue to conquer and tackle this season.”
Underwood broke down in tears when his virginity — and the criticism he received from his fellow contestants, along with backlash he experienced on social media — came up during the Bachelorette reunion taping. When speaking to The Hollywood Reporter after that Men Tell All taping, he said he hoped ABC would “showcase” the personal choice he has made if he were to become The Bachelor.
“The show is known for being romantic and for being intimate and I think the stigma around virginity is that you’re not romantic or sexual,” Underwood said. “So that’s an interesting topic that, if ABC was ready, it would be something to showcase.”
Season 17 lead Sean Lowe was a born-again virgin, but producers shied away from making his personal choice a prominent storyline when he appeared on the show in 2013. He remains the only Bachelor star to be married to his winner, Catherine Giudici, with whom he has two children.
While speaking to DeGeneres, Underwood said that he also hopes to come out of The Bachelor with a wife and kids. “I’m so excited to not only meet my fiancee and my wife, but to [also meet] the mother of my children and someone I want to spend the rest of my life with,” he said. “I feel like I was born to be a dad, so I’m literally super excited for this.”
Watch Underwood’s interview with DeGeneres below. The Bachelor is set to return to ABC in January.
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