ABC/Eric McCandless One of the Dancing With The Stars contestants was almost Bachelorette!
Nick Viall is synonymous with Bachelor Nation these days, yet, he and ABC Executive Rob Mills were left to ponder what the franchise would look like without the former Bachelor during Tuesday’s episode of The Viall Files.
Would he be living in Wisconsin as a mid-level manager selling software? That seemed a likely scenario if current Dancing With The Stars contestant Chrishell Stause had actually become Bachelorette roughly a decade ago.
“She would never remember this,” said Mills, who was the featured guest during The Bachelorette episode recap. “I’ve actually had lunch with Chrishell. This was about 10, 11 years ago, to talk about being The Bachelorette.”
At the time, The Bachelorette only aired sporadically, but after “stuff that wasn’t really working,” the network decided to revive the female-led iteration of the reality series.
The search for a new leading lady was underway and the casting director suggested speaking with Stause. She, at the time, was an actor on the daytime soap opera, All My Children.
After an “incredible lunch,” Mills “was convinced this is the Bachelorette, this is the Bachelorette.” That was until then Bachelor Brad Womack infamously did not propose to either of his final two women.
“And one of them was DeAnna [Pappas],” said Mills. “And then there was everybody, including I remember Ellen Degeneres actually calling the president of ABC at the time, saying ‘this woman needs to be the Bachelorette.’”
At that point, it seemed like it had to be Pappas, but if Stause had been chosen, “we wouldn’t have had DeAnna and then we wouldn’t have thought to have Jason Mesnick,” and the show may never have seen Viall make it to the final two of Andi Dorfman’s season.
While she did not find love on television, Stause would go on to marry and divorce actor Justin Hartley. This year, she starred on Days of Our Lives and Selling Sunset, before joining Dancing With The Stars in pursuit of the mirrorball trophy.
Hartley Filed for Divorce From Stause in November 2019
While Stause never handed out the roses, her love life did play out in the public eye when her marriage to the This is Us actor ended in November 2019.
Their divorce played out in part during season three of Selling Sunset. In episode six, Mary Fitzgerald visits Stause and she says, “We had a fight that day [he filed] over the phone and I never saw him since. We didn’t talk things through and before we had a chance to figure things out, he filed [for divorce].”
She added, “I found out because he texted me that we were filed. Forty-five minutes later, the world knew.”
The couple was together for six years, first meeting in 2013. In early 2014, the real estate agent’s rep confirmed their relationship to E! Online.
After announcing their engagement in 2016, they went on to marry on October 28, 2017. Hartley’s castmates Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Chrissy Metz were reported by Us Weekly to attend.
The couple never had children together, but Hartley shares daughter Isabella with ex-wife Lindsay Hartley.
Pappas Married the Brother of a Former Bachelorette Contestant
Pappas’ life would likely look very different if she had not served as lead of season four of The Bachelorette. While her engagement with Jesse Csincsak did not last, she would go on to find love within the Bachelor Nation family.
She got married in 2011 to Stephen Stagliano, whose brother appeared as a contestant on Jillian Harris’ season of The Bachelorette. The couple first met in 2009 at a party for The Men Tell All special, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Today, the couple share daughter Addison Marie and son Austin Michael.
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