Hannah Brown Was ‘Broken’ After Reality TV Journey: I Didn't 'Like' Myself
Hannah Brown has come a long way since Bachelor Nation met her on Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor — and the 26-year-old former Miss Alabama could barely recognize herself after her whirlwind journey as The Bachelorette and mirrorball winner on Dancing With the Stars.
“When I think of Hannah then and I was also looking at my journals today, I’m like, ‘Oh, sweet baby,’” Brown told fellow former Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe on a recent episode of “Off the Vine” podcast. “[I was] just was so doe-eyed and so innocent.”
Brown, who was briefly engaged to Jed Wyatt after season 15 of The Bachelorette, told Bristowe, 35, that she struggled watching the season 16 premiere.
“I’m proud of my season and how I grew from that, but to know that there has been a lot that’s happened since then and to watch somebody else and realize that was me. People were sitting like I was, watching me, like, do my life, not play a character,” she explained. “And I think about the impact of all that. [What] people saw on TV wasn’t just a two-hour week thing that then got talked about Twitter. No, I’m still healing and learning from that first two hours I was ever on TV and just realizing the impact … like a whole season later was difficult. I want to watch [Clare Crawley] and be a part of it, but I definitely think that there’s a part of me that has to step back a little.”
Following her brief engagement to Wyatt, who got caught lying on the show about his past relationship, Brown competed on and won season 28 of DWTS. After riding the high of winning the competition show, Brown came under fire for singing the N-word in May.
“Me being me is making some big mistakes, but those victories that I do have are going to be so much more impactful and satisfying for me,” she said, hinting at the controversy.
The Alabama native added that she’s working with a therapist and a life coach.
“For my career to be what I want it to be, I’d got to, like, know Hannah, and know exactly what motives me and not just externally but internally and I think I’m still in that discovery mode,” she told Bristowe. “Ultimately, what I think I’ve been put on this earth to do is connect with people.”
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“I think I found the hardest, most draining distraction I could find to not deal with what had gone on,” Brown admitted. “It was just back-to-back-to-back. I’m so thankful for winning and it was the best experience. … [But] it’s not only hard emotionally, but physically, I’m still [recovering]. You have a physical therapist and doctors on staff, but it’s a ‘we’re going to ease the pain so you can get through.’ … And that’s how I lived my life, like, ‘I’m getting through, but we haven’t fixed the problems yet.’”
Brown went on to admit that she was so “not OK” during her stint on DWTS. “I was having breakdowns,” she said.
Eric McCandless/ABC
“I had to look within, like, ‘What just happened? What has the past year and a half been like and who even were you before that and have you lost the girl or is that girl the same or just different or am I just somebody that I didn’t even recognize?’” she recalled. “There was a lot of things I didn’t like about me anymore.”
Brown added that she had a friend recently told her she was “back.”
“She was like, ‘I remember coming home crying because I could just tell you were just so broken and so distracted and just not you.’ And she was like, ‘I know it’s been hard for you the past few months, but you’re back and I missed you,’” she recalled. “It killed me, but it was so violating because I know I did a lot of work. I lost sight of things because I couldn’t even stand to look at it all and feel the pain but it all but I finally did and I actually like this person again.”
Kelsey McNeal/ABC
“Being filmed 24 hours a day for however long and it’s only [on] two hours a week, there’s only so much that people get to see,” Brown said, citing her YouTube channel as a way to give her fans a different side of her.
Mark Bourdillon/ABC
Both Brown and Bristowe agreed that filming The Bachelor was more fun than filming The Bachelorette.
“I guess I still am a very polarizing ‘character’ … People either love me or hate me but especially on The Bachelor it was like that. But as far as that time, it was a freakin’ blast,” she said.
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Brown made the move from Alabama to Los Angeles in 2019. she returned to the South amid the coronavirus pandemic — and spent a stint in Florida with Tyler Cameron. She moved back to L.A. over the summer.
“My parents were like, ‘Why do you want to move back right now? I don’t understand,’” she recalled to Bristowe. “I had to get out. It wasn’t [a feeling of] comfort anymore, it felt so complacent. I really wasn’t doing what I was supposed to.”
Courtesy of Hannah Brown/Instagram
“There are some things that I would never want to do again and would not want to live through again, but I do believe that there were lessons that I had to learn for being prepared of what’s to come,” she said.
Courtesy of Hannah Brown/Instagram
Brown admitted that she's never watched her season of The Bachelorette, but she hopes to get there one day. "Somebody asked me about what it would be like if I watched it kind of knowing what I do know — even about the relationships — watched it through the lens of me now," she said. "I would love to be able to do that, but I think it's going to be a process."
Courtesy of Hannah Brown/Instagram
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