Brooke Blurton is the next Bachelorette. Photo / Channel 10
Channel 10 has named the next Bachelorette and not only will she be the first openly bisexual star of the show, she'll also be the first Indigenous suitress.
Youth worker Brooke Blurton, 26, who was a contestant on The Bachelor in 2018 and later appeared on Bachelor In Paradise, will grace our screens as Australia's next Bachelorette.
Casting for the show is now open and given Brooke is bisexual, both men and women are being invited to apply.
How's that for a plot twist?!
"I am so ready for this," Brooke, a proud Noongar-Yamatji woman from Western Australia, said in a press release. "I've done it twice before and now, having the opportunity to choose my person and who I want in my life, is a truly unique and special experience.
"My perfect person is someone that loves me for me," she said. "I hope they offer shared values and compassion for others. All the dreamy things! I'm so excited and hope that I finally find that person I've been waiting for."
Brooke's appearance on The Bachelor in 2018
Brooke was the frontrunner to win Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins' season of The Bachelor in 2018, but she shocked viewers when she chose to quit the show towards the end of the season.
When she appeared on Bachelor In Paradise, she revealed why she chose to walk away from the sportsman.
"My last day with Nick we were on like a motorbike," she said. "I thought there was definitely chemistry there and we'd developed something good. I thought maybe I would be the girl there at the end. But then he stopped the cameras and like smothered his mic to tell me that he wasn't going to pick anyone in the end.
"He told me not to tell anyone and, like, I protected him for that reason. It ate at me … I couldn't tell the other girls and I felt that was really s**t."
Brooke's appearance on Bachelor in Paradise
Brooke appeared on BIP in 2019 and made headlines when she went on a date with Alex Nation.
The two hit it off but Alex eventually chose Bill Goldsmith over Brooke and Brooke left the show not long afterwards.
Brooke didn't think Australia was ready for a bisexual Bachelorette
Speaking to The Babble podcast last year, Brooke was asked if she would be willing to be The Bachelorette.
She said she would be "open to it", but added she wasn't sure if Channel 10 would be on board.
"I'm a little bit different in the sense that I date both sexes and whether Channel 10 and Warner Brothers would be up to a bi Bachelorette (is the question)," she said, according to Marie Claire. "I don't know what they would think that looks like or if Australia would be ready for that".
Brooke asked out Abbie Chatfield
Brooke recently appeared on Abbie Chatfield's podcast It's A Lot and told listeners that she had asked Abbie out on a date twice.
"She's not politely declined nor accepted," Brooke said.
Abbie replied: "I said yes, babe, when you asked me on a date I said yes, but at the time there was something called coronavirus and I couldn't go to fu**ing Western Australia, you live in Perth, just to clarify."
Last year's season of The Bachelorette
Let's hope Brooke has more luck than last year's joint Bachelorettes Elly and Becky Miles, who both split from their chosen suitors not long after the finale aired.
Becky's experience was particularly brutal, with winner Pete Mann dumping her over FaceTime after just three days together.
Elly Miles and her winner Frazer Neale broke up just a few weeks later amid cheating rumours, with Elly fighting back tears as she confirmed the news on Instagram in December last year.
"I think we just grew apart after the show. It was really really hard having the distance and the secrecy and I guess everything that comes along with having a new relationship in the media," she said.
Addressing the allegations of cheating that had plagued the pair since the finale, she added: "Whether it's true or not I don't know, that's not the reason we broke up.
"He says it's not true but f*** who knows, honestly."
Past Bachelorettes Angie Kent and Ali Oetjen were also unlucky in their reality TV searches for love, both splitting from their chosen men last year.
But it's not all doom and gloom in the Bachelorette universe.
Georgia Love and Lee Elliott tied the knot in March, nearly five years after they first met on the show.
After having to cancel their plans for an Italian wedding due to Covid, the couple said "I do" during an outdoor ceremony at Tasmania winery Frogmore Creek Winery.
The bride looked stunning in a strapless custom-made gown by Justin Grech, while Lee wore a white tuxedo.
The couple celebrated their wedding by posting the same black-and-white shot of them kissing on Instagram.
Who is this year's Bachelor?
Today's Bachelorette announcement comes after Jimmy Nicholson, a 31-year-old pilot from Sydney, was unveiled as the new Bachelor.
Jimmy, who is of New Zealand and Fijian heritage, has made it clear he's going on The Bachelor to find "the one".
"The journey ahead will be one of the most challenging experiences that I have ever undertaken, however I am very excited to meet someone that I could potentially spend the rest of my life with."
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Jimmy added: "I hope to meet someone with similar values that I can have fun with and that shares the same zest for life as myself. The Bachelor franchise has produced many success stories and I hope to be the next."
Channel 10 has revealed the show will be filmed at a new mansion this year, though details are currently under wraps.
The show started filming in Sydney in March.
Jussie Smollett was convicted of staging a hate crime in 2021.