Note: the following contains spoilers for “The Bachelorette” Season 20, Episode 1.
“Bachelor” Mondays are officially back with a new season of “The Bachelorette” led by Georgia native Charity Lawson. After facing a heartbreaking end to her relationship with Zach Shallcross, Charity is ready to find love on the ABC reality dating series — and she’s already shaking things up on Night 1.
As Charity welcomed a slew of handsome suitors to the Bachelor mansion, she was greeted by a familiar face when she sees her brother, Nehemiah, making his own limo entrance. While Nehemiah told his sister he was just there to support her on her special night, he took a more direct approach to protecting her by disguising himself as the bartender. As the men mingle amongst themselves while Charity got to know them one on one, Nehemiah overheard Brayden bragging about his kiss with Charity — even going as far as to say he might get the first impression rose — which immediately raised some red flags.
After Nehemiah revealed himself and told Charity he found Brayden’s behavior to be arrogant and said his comments were “problematic,” Charity approached Brayden, herself, and, to everyone’s surprise, gave him her first impression rose.
“My brother’s insight was, of course, incredibly helpful, and it may not make sense obviously after hearing that and then giving Brayden the first impression rose, but I’m capable of making choices on my own,” Charity told TheWrap. “His information, I definitely did store it… I think he wanted to keep me aware of [it] for future references of, ‘OK, this is confident right now, but this could also easily transition quickly over to someone who could be very cocky.’”
Despite her decision to secure Brayden’s spot in the Bachelor mansion earlier than the other suitors, Charity admitted that she agreed with her brother that Brayden spilling the details of their first couple minutes together was “problematic.”
“Part of me is like, ‘Yeah, he’s excited.’ But that was an intimate moment. And I also shared kisses with other guys, and we don’t see them go[ing] and talk[ing] about that,” Charity said. “I definitely felt 50/50 on it.”
Ultimately, however, this season’s leading lady decided to trust her heart and stick with Brayden, who Charity noted felt like a “breath of fresh air.”
“I was incredibly nervous, but excited to meet other guys — and they were, too. So I just remember sitting down with Brayden [and] we really just hit it off right off the bat,” Charity said. “We connected on so many different things — there’s similarities in our past dating history… Just him talking about why he’s here and [that he was] excited that I’m the Bachelorette — all those things really stood out to me.”
Putting Charity at ease during an especially nerve-racking first night, their rendezvous ended with a particularly steamy kiss — one that certainly intimidated some of Brayden’s fellow suitors.
“The conversation just flowed effortlessly, I didn’t have to force the conversation to keep going, there was just this momentum that seemed to never stop,” Charity said. “That’s really huge, especially on a night like that, where you can just sit down and you’re relaxed and you’re at ease with with someone, so truly [I] had to give it to Brayden.”
“The Bachelorette” airs Mondays on ABC and is available on demand and on Hulu on Tuesdays.
