She made an impression! Bachelor Nation fans already met season 27 contestant Brianna Thorbourne before Zach Shallcross‘ journey official began.
The 24-year-old entrepreneur was one of five lucky ladies to appear on the After the Final Rose special in September 2022 after Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia‘s season of The Bachelorette came to an end. Brianna snapped a selfie with the 26-year-old Bachelor and ultimately won America’s heart.
“I wanted to do something special for us so we would always remember this,” Brianna told the California native as they posed in front of a Bachelor Mansion backdrop. “It’s a little something for you to remember me by, and I’ll see you at the mansion soon.”
After earning the most votes from fans tuning in that night, Brianna will be safe from elimination during the Monday, January 23, season premiere. Zach gushed over each of the “incredible” women who showed up early.
“Everyone impressed me. That was incredible,” he told host Jesse Palmer during the live show. “Everyone [is] obviously beautiful, but everyone had their own way to make an impression.”
Zach made his ABC debut last year, searching for love on the first-ever joint Bachelorette season. He fell for Rachel, 26, but the pair’s spark fizzled out after fantasy suites when he claimed the flight instructor behaved differently off camera. (Rachel accepted a proposal from Tino Franco, but the pair called it quits shortly afterward.)
After his rocky experience on The Bachelorette, the tech exec is more than ready to find his perfect match. “I would tell the critics and the fans, if you wanna watch … this show and actually see love and no bulls–t and not a scene or not an act, then I think you’re really gonna love this [season],” he exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month. “If you are someone that wants the unnecessary dumb drama — alright, [but] I might not be your guy. Plain and simple.”
One of the biggest factors Zach values is “communication” — something he and Rachel struggled with. “I know what I want out of this, and I know what it takes to have that healthy relationship,” he told Us. “Going into night one, I didn’t have any rules for myself. … I’m someone that believes you have one true love, like, the one person that your heart just yearns for. The one you think of when you go to bed. The one you think of when you wake up. You only have one love, but there are varying degrees of love to get to that point.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll down to learn more about season 27’s Brianna as she vies for Zach’s heart: