Jenn Tran was ‘struck with surprise’ by ‘Bachelorette’ premiere twist

Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Bachelorette season premiere.

Bye-bye, Bachelor Mansion. Hello, Melbourne!

At the end of Monday night’s The Bachelorette premiere, Jenn Tran stunned the remaining men when she revealed that they’d soon be leaving their traditional home base and venturing into the unknown on a surprise trip to Melbourne, Australia. 

“I was so excited,” Jenn tells Entertainment Weekly about the episode’s twist ending. “I’d been dying to go to Australia for so long, and so to finally be able to check something off my bucket list — and also, like, immediately, too. Usually you don’t travel ’til a couple of weeks into the season, so I was just so struck with surprise.”

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The 26-year-old says that viewers can look forward to seeing “a lot of fun, fun dates” on the season’s upcoming international adventures. 

“I think the dates that we had this season and the places that we traveled to really spoke to where we were. They weren’t just dates that you could do anywhere,” she explains. “They were really dates that allowed us to get to know the country that we were in and the culture that we were exploring.” 

That didn’t mean some of the date activities weren’t totally intimidating. A trailer for the season reveals that not only does Jenn speed through a wall of boxes in a pink automobile at one point, but the physician’s assistant student also goes skydiving. 

“I was definitely pushed outside my comfort zone a lot throughout the season, including with the skydiving,” she confesses. “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do, but wasn’t sure I could do. I’ve always said if I was going to do it, someone’s going to have to really push me out of there and, like, sedate me. But I was so happy that I finally got the courage to jump, and it was it was a really good moment.”

Still, Jenn notes that she overcame her worries by taking the entire Bachelorette experience “one day at a time,” adding, “In the moment, [I] just rose to the occasion, did the best I could, and just was myself 100 percent of the time.”

The Bachelorette airs on Mondays on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.