Jenn Tran Used A Sneaky Hack For Her 1st Bachelorette Rose Ceremony

Every lead in Bachelor franchise history has faced the same challenge that Bachelorette Jenn Tran can be seen wrestling with right now: whittling a pack of 25(ish) suitors down to one winner. But that’s arguably not even Tran’s hardest job. She has to somehow keep all those rose-seekers’ names straight along the way.

After her Bachelorette premiere on July 8, Tran admitted her memory didn’t fare well on Night 1. She explained on the Girls Gotta Eat podcast that she got help to make it through her inaugural rose ceremony. Luckily, there’s a well-worn franchise hack for calling out the right names.

“Every few roses, I would go [to the producers], and be like, ‘I want to give this one a rose, just remind me of his name,’” Tran admitted.

She can hardly be blamed for struggling. The first night is a notoriously long shoot, so on top of having 25 names to remember, she was sleep-deprived and “delusional,” as Tran told hosts Rayna Greenberg and Ashley Hesseltine.

“Honestly, on Night 1, it’s 10 a.m. … and I’m fully up for, what, 24 hours at that point,” she said.

Tran also noted she’s “already bad with names,” and it would be “insane” to be able to remember them all.

Time-Tested Production Magic

Producers have been helping out behind the scenes for years. Former Bachelorette contestant Chris Randone gave some insight into how rose ceremonies work in an Us Weekly interview in September 2020. He shared that then-lead Becca Kufrin would name three men at a time, stepping away in between each trio.

“They come out and she only said three names at a time,” he explained, adding, “Three names at a time, and it’s like, stop production, start, stop, start, and you’re just like, trying to hold your facial expressions.”

That aligns with what ex host Chris Harrison told E! in 2009 (via the Ashley’s Reality Roundup). “Everyone’s nervous at their first rose ceremony, so we make it real easy for them, and we break [shooting] up into three to five people at a time,” he explained. “Then we’ll stop, just to make sure we don’t run into any mistakes.”

Though it’s time-consuming — Randone said it takes “forever” — the producers think it’s more “natural.” Harrison noted that they prefer their approach to having a microphone in their lead’s ear or using cue cards.

Night 1 is the hardest, of course, so Jenn will likely have to rely on the producers’ help less and less as her season continues.