Jenn Tran is making good on her promise to find The One her own way.
During the Monday, July 8, premiere of The Bachelorette, the season 21 star was only shown kissing one contestant: 27-year-old Sam M.
“I didn’t go into the night thinking, ‘I don’t want to kiss anyone.’ I went into the night knowing how this process works, how this journey works, how other Bachelor/ Bachelorettes have gone throughout their journeys, and, for me, a first kiss means a lot. And I need to be able to feel a certain level of comfortability with somebody,” Jenn told Us Weekly in an exclusive interview before the premiere. “And I need to be able to feel like our relationship is at that point for me to want to kiss you. I knew that it wasn’t going to be everybody on night one, and so I really just tried to listen to my gut and whoever I felt most comfortable with, I was like, ‘Yes, I’ll entertain it,’ but I knew I wasn’t going to kiss everybody.”
Sam M. not only got a “feral” – and lengthy — first makeout session, but he also scored the coveted first impression rose.
“Throughout that night, I was just like, ‘Who am I going to give the first impression rose to?’ And I kept thinking back to Sam, because we had such an easy flowing conversation,” Jenn said. “It was easy to give him that rose, because I just felt so comfortable and I knew that there was going to be potential there.”
Sam M. is a general contractor from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — and yes, his intro package gave Us minor Tyler Cameron flashbacks on the construction site.
“Picture your life 50 years from now, waking up on a Saturday morning, to me cooking breakfast. I just have one thing to ask you,” Sam M. said when he got out of the limo before making a joke about Jenn’s love for shots. “With two shots in my head, do you know what time it is? It’s shot o’oclock.”
While Sam M. appears to be a solid pick for the first impression rose (historically, many Bachelorettes’ first impression rose recipient), Jenn is the first to admit that she hasn’t always had a great picker.
“I would say based on my previous dating relationship history, I don’t think I saw red flags very well because of the way I grew up and not having a role model of love,” she explained. “I definitely dated men who weren’t good for me because I just didn’t understand what love really was. But through those bad experiences, I think I was able to really learn what I don’t want and to take that as a lesson into what I now need in a relationship.”
Jenn concluded to Us that she is “very happy” with how the season progresses.
“I can say that I definitely opened my heart up to a lot of different connections and explored a lot of these [men]. The way that things panned out throughout the journey and the way that things ended, I’m very happy about [it],” she said.
The Bachelorette airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
