Bachelorette Auditions

One time I went to the auditions for The Bachelorette. Okay I din't go audition myself, but I tagged along with my good friend who was single at the time. She's really pretty and really smart so I truly believed she had a shot at sparking their interest. But also she's very level-headed so that'd surely make them pass. I just wanted to see it all. This was in late summer of 2014 but I'm guessing it's still very similar to this day.

We arrived at the address. It was a local Atlanta news station and there were handwritten posters with handwritten arrows saying, "Bachelor Auditions This Way." Honestly it was kinda sketchy that they couldn't shell out a few extra dollars for printed signs. It looked like the pep rally signs that cheerleaders make in high school, real cutesy, probably by a summer intern.

We had to park on the street and pay for it, and walk about five minutes following the signs to get to the entrance. There were security guards with metal detectors and they checked our purses. Once about ten people had made it to security, someone from ABC walked us back through a maze of hallways to a large room. Part of the room had rows of chairs like a waiting room, part of the room had tables to fill out the paperwork, and part of the room was ABC staff just doing their stuff, like a photo backdrop for headshots and some stacks of paper and stuff. Honestly it was not very well organized.

So we walked in wearing our normal everyday clothes, and there was no indication of what we were supposed to do, and nobody talked to us for about a solid minute. I guess the ABC interns were just chatting away, I dunno. Eventually someone was like, "Sign in here, and fill out this packet." So she signed in, put on a name tag, and started filling out the questionnaire.

There is no way they actually read those questionnaires. The questions were so dumb, like "What's your dream vacation?" "Do you have any tattoos?" Very few of them had substance. They did cover some important topics too though, like "Do you have children?" "Describe your relationship with your parents." I bet they don't pay attention the the questionnaire until they've already narrowed it down to about 100 girls, because it was pretty long and boring. I stole one of the pens that said "The Bachelor" on it, but it was the very cheapest most terrible quality, probably because they anticipated everyone takes them.

We finished the packet, turned it in, and sat in the waiting room area. We knew when they called her name they'd take her headshot, take her to interview, and bring her back. We waited about thirty minutes and observed as much as we could. Most of the girls were wearing way cute clothes, like minidresses and high heels and a hairdo that probably took and hour. My friend was wearing normal clothes, like a cute summery skirt, and a tank top, and a chambray shirt. They told her to take off her outer layer for her headshot. They took her to a back room for her interview and I waited.

Alone in the waiting room and feeling out of place, I noticed someone on ABC staff talking for a long time to one of the auditioners. The staff person was like, "I'm so glad you came out to meet us!" And the woman was like, "I'm so glad you called! I didn't even know this was going on!" So I got a glimpse of the hand-picked thing. I wonder if they don't even consider the people who walk in off the street if they haven't already gotten a phone call tip off about them. I tried so hard to study the girl's face to then know if she became a contestant, but I don't remember a thing about her.

When she returned, she said it was kinda pointless. She interviewed with three people, and they seemed disinterested. They essentially just repeated the same questions, asked about her job and education and family, and asked a couple "how would you react if...." questions. Then they said bye and we never heard from them again.