Why the ‘Bachelorette’ Finale Skipped the ‘After the Final Rose’ Special
The Bachelorette served up a near-perfect finale on December 22. The episode featured the highly anticipated return of Ben Smith and gave Bachelor Nation one of the most beautiful engagements in franchise history between Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark. Like I said, perfect…except for the fact that there was no ‘After the Final Rose’ special!
Fans were not happy about it. “Ok don’t get me wrong I’m ECSTATIC Zac and Tayshia are together but WHERE IS OUR AFTER THE FINAL ROSE I NEED CLOSURE,” Brett S. Vergara tweeted.
“I need to know that Brendan, Ivan, and Ben are all okay,” another fan added.
Ultimately, host Chris Harrison revealed that having the “After the Final Rose” ceremony this season was simply not possible this time around because of the coronavirus pandemic. “It pains me there’s no AFR live special this #TheBachelorette season,” he tweeted on December 22. “Due to being pushed into the holidays and the difficulty of bringing people safely together during this time it just wasn’t possible. But hopefully, we’ll be back for #TheBachelor.”
Hopefully is right! But it wasn’t only the fans and Harrison that were bummed about missing out on this seasonal tradition. Bachelorette Tayshia Adams was also looking forward to showing off her happy relationship on that national stage. “Being that we have been in secret for so long, I really do wish that I would have been able to be on that stage and be like, ‘Yeah, it’s been him the whole time! And we’ve been engaged this long!’ and just scream it from the rooftops,” Adams told Glamour the day after the finale aired on ABC. “But it is what it is, and we’re just happy.”
Of course, there was an upside. “It was so nice to be able to watch the final episode with my family and have Zac here,” she continued. “When someone would do cheers [onscreen], we would all cheer and start screaming. It was just really cute memories I will cherish forever.”
Additional reporting by West Coast editor Jessica Radloff.
