Zach Shallcross is the newest 'Bachelor' ready to find love
NEW YORK -- He was one of the final three guys left vying for Rachel Reccia's heart last season on "The Bachelorette," but Zach Shallcross ended up sending himself home. Now, the 26-year-old tech executive from Southern California is back as "The Bachelor."
Those who consider themselves citizens of Bachelor Nation will tell you it's important the men and women who appear on the show are there "for the right reasons."
Usually, that means those competing who are genuinely looking for love, as opposed to playing the game to enjoy a brief flicker of fame. By this standard, Zach gets high marks.
His goal is the same as the others who have been at the center of this show. Zach is seen in the season promo solemnly intoning that his, "goal is to get on one knee, and propose to the person I can for sure see would be my person for the rest of my life."
With filming now complete for the season, Entertainment Reporter Sandy Kenyon asked if that had happened.
"I found love," he said. "But everyone is going to have to tune in to find out what that looks like, but I've very happy with how everything worked."
When asked if the season ended in a proposal, he said he couldn't answer that question.
This kind of interview is always a delicate dance: part of a promotion that seeks to give viewers a hint of what's is going to happen this season without giving away the ending. Tears are part of the tease as the promos clearly indicate.
"I feel like a failure," Zach says in one. "I felt I let myself down. I let the women down."
Viewers first met Zach when he seemed go have chemistry with Rachel.
"I'm feeling it," he said in Mexico. "And, I think she's feelin' it too."
But, the sparks didn't produce a flame so he ended up returning to his tech job, only to quit to become the next Bachelor.
"It is a little bit of a hit of like, OK I'm taking just a complete pause on the career I've been having for close to four years, and now when do I start that up again?' Well, when this whole thing simmers down a bit," he said.
As you might have gathered by now, Zach is level-headed, but he reassured Kenyon that doesn't mean he's boring.
"I don't take life too seriously, I make the worst jokes of all time," he said. "I mean I'm not funny, but I think I am sometimes. Fans will see the quirkiness but at the end they'll just see that sometimes I'm just a big softie that just wants to have his forever person. "
The former college football player says he's fine dating a woman who is not a football fan.
Zach told the New York Post it's not a deal breaker. What's important to him is that his mate understand his love for the game.
The newest season of "The Bachelor" premieres Monday, Jan. 23 at 8/7c on ABC.
MORE | PHOTOS: 1st look at the ladies of 'The Bachelor' 2023:
