Spoilers for The Bachelorette season 21 finale ahead. September 3, 2024, is a day that will go down in Bachelor Nation history, thanks to the season 21 finale of The Bachelorette. Over the past few months, the dating reality TV series has promised a finale that will give viewers they've never seen before in The Bachelor franchise history, and the resolution of Jenn Tran's season did meet that promise. However, it also sent the entire fandom (and even casual Bachelor viewers) reeling from the big reveals about Jenn Tran and Devin Strader's relationship. Read on to understand the ongoing drama and backlash surrounding Jenn's The Bachelorette finale, including why some fans are now boycotting the franchise.
What happened between Jenn and Devin on 'The Bachelorette' season 21 finale?
Most of The Bachelorette finale seemed to be business as usual: After ending things with runner-up Marcus Shoberg, Jenn seemed excited to end her season by getting proposed to her final pick, Devin. She even decided to switch things up by proposing to Devin instead of letting him propose to her, fulfilling the show's season-long promise for a first-ever moment for the franchise.
However, instead of the big moment, The Bachelorette finale switched to the live After the Final Rose special to reveal that Jenn and Devin had split up in the few months between the Hawaii proposal and the finale's airing.
While fighting off tears, Jenn explained on the special that she and Devin's relationship shifted after leaving Hawaii engaged. She explained that he began pulling away and contacting her less after they returned to their separate lives. She felt at the time that he was "pulling away all the promises he had made," and that she'd felt "secondary" to everything else in his life.
Jenn revealed that Devin broke off the engagement over the phone two months after filming wrapped. "He called me, and he basically broke off the engagement. [He said] he didn't love me anymore, feel the same way and felt like something had been off since the second thing he proposed. He regretted getting engaged."
Jenn added that while they had been dating, she had tried to understand the pressures he faced after getting engaged on reality TV and how she wanted to make it work.
"[I said] 'Let's just be together. We don't have to be engaged—I want a life with you, I don't need a ring on my finger,'" she recalled. "He was checked out. It wasn't what he wanted anymore. And I've been fighting for the relationship, trying to do everything I can to empathize with him and try to make things work. He didn't want to go to couples counseling. He didn't want to fight for the relationship anymore."
How was Maria involved in Jenn and David's breakup?
When Devin joined Jenn onstage during the live After the Final Rose special, Jenn quickly confronted him about his actions following the breakup. In one notable moment, she called him out for following women on Instagram the day after the phone call—including Bachelor alum Maria Georgas.
Maria was Jenn's fellow contestant on Joey Graziadei's season of The Bachelor and a fan favorite. While appearing on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast last May, Maria confirmed that she was supposed to be the Bachelorette this season before she backed out and was replaced by Jenn. Now, fans speculate that Devin joined the series hoping that Maria would be the Bachelorette, and he possibly led Jenn on throughout the show.
"What I can’t understand is everything that you did after we’ve broken our engagement," Jenn said, per PEOPLE. "Ending the engagement on a phone call, and the next day, I wake up to you following girls on Instagram—not just any girl, but Maria ... It completely invalidated our entire relationship, everything that I had felt for you, everything that we’d felt for each other."
"Obviously I failed you," Devin said. "And there's nothing I can say other than that. But, everything I felt for you was real."
As they continued to talk, Jenn argued that his actions while the show was airing made it seem like he didn't "give a crap" about the breakup. "You're posting about the show, having a great old time, and I am heartbroken every Monday night watching the lies that you said to me on TV," she said.
Devin concluded later in the special, "I know that I fell short of a lot of your expectations to the point where you, like you said, you were doing things that were diminishing who you were," he conceded. "And you can sit here and say I'm a liar, this and that, I'm not gonna deny you on any of those things."
Have Devin and Maria been in touch since 'The Bachelorette?'
Even before the finale, fans had been speculating that Maria was possibly dating one of the suitors from Jenn's season. Over the past few weeks, Maria has reportedly been seen hanging out with Jeremy Simon, one of Jenn's suitors who was eliminated after Hometowns. While it's common for Bachelor Nation stars to hang out (and Maria and Jeremy are both based in N.Y.C.), After the Final Rose hinted that Devin could have also met up with Maria recently.
At one point in the former couple's confrontation, Jenn questioned whether he felt any pain from the breakup. She noted that, just hours before they ended things, he went clubbing in New York with Jeremy. Not only was his immediate answer rough—"Am I not allowed to live a life?"—fans also speculate that Devin, Jeremy, and Maria could have been in contact.
Two days after the Bachelorette finale, Maria responded to the speculation in a five-minute TikTok video, per PEOPLE. “Last night was hard to watch, and my heart goes out to Jenn,” Maria began, before explaining that she's only able to speak to her own side of the situation. “I can’t speak on her relationship. The only two people who can speak on her relationship are her and Devin.”
Maria went on to confirm that she hadn't been aware that Devin had followed her on Instagram. “I had no clue about that until people brought it to my attention,” she explained. “And by that time, when I found out, he had unfollowed."
"Let me clear the air on something: I have never met Devin before," she continued.
"I never went clubbing out with [Devin]. He did his own thing. Did I go out with Jeremy—a night with friends, a bunch of us together? Yes, I did," she said, adding that she will “not apologize” for meeting other Bachelor franchise stars.
@georgasisbored Put it to REST.
♬ original sound - Maria Georgas
“I can’t control who follows who,” she continued. “But what I can control is what I do about it. And what I’m doing is not following back. And I never followed back. Now seeing how things transpired, I will never follow that man."
“My character, my innocence, my peace is important to me. And I will not fuck that up for no one,” she said. “Just because [Jenn and I] separated our ways and are no longer friends doesn’t mean we hate each other, it doesn’t mean that if someone is going to disrespect her in my face, that I’m going to sit here and stand for it. Because I’m not.”
“I’m just a regular person who went on a reality TV show. Stop holding me to a standard that doesn’t exist,” she concluded.
What are Bachelor Nation fans saying after the season 21 finale?
Simply put: Fans aren't happy with Devin or The Bachelorette's producers. Much of the criticism stems from the most heartbreaking moment of After the Final Rose, when, after Jenn's tearful breakup reveal and her confrontation with Devin, the show still aired the exes' proposal, highlighting the "historic" moment where Jenn proposed to Devin. After host Jesse Palmer asked if they should watch it together—and Jenn responded, "Do I have a choice?"—the former Bachelorette had to stay on stage and relive the moment as a picture-in-picture shot showed her weeping through the clip.
Viewers across social media called out the producers, accusing them of mistreatment of their first Asian lead, calling the moment "cruel and unnecessary," "disgusting and shameful," and "the worst thing this show has ever done." In addition to airing the proposal, the Maria of it all also has left viewers side-eyeing The Bachelorette's producers for casting men who were interested in Maria, a white woman, and then replacing her with Jenn, the first Asian Bachelorette, without recasting more men with Jenn in mind. Some fans are even demanding that production make a public apology to Jenn, or vowing to quit watching the Bachelor franchise altogether.
Jenn should have gotten up in the middle of proposal showing and gave everyone the peace sign. Walk out of that studio and never turned back. Absolutely cruel and unnecessary to make her watch that back. Cannot believe it #TheBacheloretteSeptember 4, 2024
