The Bachelor has handed out his first rose and it’s already generating controversy. Tech executive Zach Shallcross‘ First Impression Rose went to aspiring suitor Greer Blitzer, but despite that beautiful positive impression, Blitzer’s past has resurfaced in an ugly way as her defense of a teen’s blackface costume — written when the 26-year-old medical sales rep was a teen herself — has resurfaced on social media. Many fans are wondering whether they can expect any more cringeworthy behavior to emerge concerning the native Texan and with that, here’s what we know so far about Season 27’s First Impression Rose recipient.
Greer Blitzer: age, height, job, and hometown
Greer is a Southern girl and a native Texan, raised in Houston, who moved to the Big Apple when she graduated from the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) with her Bachelor of Business Administration degree. That puts her on the opposite trail of Californian Zach, who left his hometown of Anaheim Hills, California to work for Oracle in cloud technology sales. Greer struggled for a bit after graduation looking for a job. “I graduated from full-time student to full-time unemployed,” she wrote via Instagram according to Us Magazine. She currently works in the medical tech field in sales — something she and Zach both have in common. At 26 she is two years younger than The Bachelor and she’s around 5’8″ which means she’s pretty shy of his soaring 6’4.”
What Greer is looking for
“Greer is loyal and confident and is looking for a partner who can keep up with her quick wit and big personality” according to her official Bachelor bio. “She is a hopeless romantic and is a sucker for forehead kisses.” It also states that she is “not afraid to speak her mind.”
Other “fun facts” in her bio state that she:
- loves to shop at flea markets.
- is never embarrassed.
- can tell a lot about someone by their sushi order.
Although Greer is living “life to its fullest” in New York, she isn’t unfamiliar with Zach’s current location in Austin. In fact, her goal has always been to live there even before she became a contestant. “I know Austin super well,” Blitzer told the Bachelor during their first encounter before revealing that not only did her brother attend her brother attended The University of Texas there, but that as a kid that she made a PowerPoint for her family that outlined why they should move there from Houston because she wanted to move there so much. “I’m not saying this because you live there now. My end goal is Austin,” she told Zach, earning a kiss, and later, the first impression rose.
Like Shallcross, Blitzer claims to be looking for something extremely long-term, in part due to the longevity of her own parents’ and grandparents’ relationships. “When you said [I’m] looking for my best friend [and] your mom has been with your dad for so long, I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ Because my parents have been together since they were 25 when they got married, and both sets of grandparents are still together, so I really want a traditional long-lasting love,” she gushed to Zach. “When you mentioned that, that just really hit home for me.”
How Greer is dealing with the fallout from defending blackface
Blitzen is currently trying to downplay allegations of racism that have erupted since it was revealed that she attempted to brush off another Houston teen’s use of blackface for a Tupac Shakur costume on Halloween. A day after the season premiere, Blitzer released an apology through her Instagram account.
The carefully worded apology read in part “I am deeply sorry for those I have hurt, especially those within the Black community, not because these screenshots have surfaced, but because I ever shared those harmful opinions at all. Time and age do not excuse my actions, but this is not a reflection of who I am today.”
It remains to see if she will remain the frontrunner for Zach’s affection.
The current season of The Bachelor airs Mondays on ABC at 8/7c.