After a whirwind year, Hannah Brown is finally getting some time to reflect on how “The Bachelorette” has changed her life.
The 24-year-old former Miss Alabama opened up Monday night in an Instagram post about the less-than-glamorous aspects going on in her life behind-the scenes.
“Honest policy: I’m struggling. Life is so different,” she captioned a photo of herself. “Since last August, I’ve been a pageant queen, a bachelor contestant, and the Bachelorette. I’ve been in love with multiple people, I got engaged, I broke off an engagement, and I shared it all with millions of people.”
A quick recap: Bachelor Nation first met Brown as a contestant on Colton Underwood’s season of “The Bachelor” this year, where she was largely framed as an awkward villain. As the star of “The Bachelorette,” she was scrutinized for keeping around her own season’s villain, Luke Parker, who she finally sent home (to fans’ relief) after he made eyebrow-raising comments about her sex life.
And before the finale aired, allegations arose that the eventual “winner,” Jed Wyatt, had a girlfriend back home he had planned to continue dating post-show. So though Brown initially accepted his proposal, she walked away from the final episode single again.
“My faith has been questioned by thousands who don’t know my heart, and my transparency with my decisions has labeled me promiscuous,” she continued in the post. “Simultaneously, I’ve become a role model for young women and started bigger conversations around faith, and sex.”
Now living on her own “for the first time,” Brown said she’s trying to figure out how to navigate her newfound media attention and what future opportunities in the spotlight might mean for her personal relationships.
“I miss my friends and family that have watched my life explode,” she added. “I feel guilty because I don’t have the time or emotional capacity to fill each of them in on my life right now. I can’t keep up with the people that matter most, because I can barely keep up with my own life right now.”
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Brown made it clear she isn’t “complaining about this past year of adventures” — rather, she’s still figuring out how to “process what the heck is going on” after a year of very abnormal experiences.
“Maybe I needed write this out to remind myself I’m human and it’s okay to be overwhelmed,”she wrote. “And maybe, I just needed to remind you guys too. Life is beautiful, but wild. I think it’s okay to be strong-to know you’re strong-but to still feel weak simultaneously. I believe that’s when the magic happens.”
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