Brayden Bowers is not letting fans’ reactions to his time on The Bachelorette faze him. The season 20 villain found himself on the receiving end of some heavy criticism from Charity Lawson as well as his fellow contestants during the “Men Tell All” episode but he told People, “You can’t take it too seriously.”
“I’ve been getting positive feedback on social media, but I’ve also been getting negative,” he told the publication. “And even in person, I’ve gotten some negative.” Bowers recounted one instance when he was at a bar in California and he met a fan of the show and her father. “She’s like, ‘I kind of thought you were a little bit of a douchebag,’” he shared. “And she’s like, ‘I thought you should’ve gone home night 1, but I’m going to go to the restroom.’ She got up and left and her dad was sitting there like, ‘Can I buy you a drink, man?’”
He said he wasn’t letting the criticism bother him and told the publication that he found the reaction to his time on the show “funny,” especially memes or videos about it.
It’s clear that Bowers has moved on from The Bachelorette and during the “Men Tell All” special, host Jesse Palmer revealed that the divisive reality TV star will actually be one of the cast members on Bachelor in Paradise season 9. Palmer hinted that the format of the show was a lot more suited to Bowers and said, “I’d say Paradise was more your dojo.”
In an interview following the “Men Tell All” episode on August 14, Lawson was asked whether she thought Bowers had just used his time on Bachelorette as an “audition” for Bachelor in Paradise. “I don’t know,” she told Entertainment Weekly. She said she felt like the two definitely had a connection, which is why he got the first impression rose and one of the first one-on-one dates, but that he might have overextended his welcome a bit despite knowing it wasn’t a good match.
“I think he definitely waited it out as much as he could, which makes me now question, ‘oh, were you trying to get to a certain point?’ I don’t know,” she shared. “He did what he did best, and we’re just going to move on.”
While the rest of the cast for Bachelor in Paradise season 9 has yet to be announced, a sneak peek at the season aired during the “Men Tell All” episode and it showed Bowers sharing a kiss with Kat Izzo, a contestant from Zach Shallcross’ Bachelor season. “He’s like a golden retriever and I love it!” Izzo gushed about the reality star in an interview shown during the preview, while he spilled that she was a great kisser.