In 2019Hannah Brownwas in the middle of her very own fairy tale.
All the beautiful dates and the passion and the excitementthat only lasts for so long, she tells me.
Now Brown is charting a new path.
When I look back, I have a lot of grace for myself, she says.
Shes also working toward building a new career: as a romance writer.
There are high jinks and romance too, of course.
So many contestants from that era got huge followings and launched careers in content creation.
What was it like to be suddenly so well known?
I started to realize just how much this was going to change my life.
I didn’t even think about the possibility of it being a career after.
I was a purist about going on the show.
How do you feel about yourBacheloretteexperience now?
I wasn’t fully in my own just yet as the Bachelorette.
Well, who is at 24?
But I also can have grace for those moments that I feel like I fell short of myself.
Even when it came to who I ended up choosing at the end, he proved me right…. Do you think thats why you made the choice you did in the end?
I don’t think my person was there.
I think I knew actually from the very first night.
I said, I don’t think my guy’s here really.
But the whole thing of that show is to open yourself up.
And at 24 years old, I didn’t fully know how to trust my gut yet.
Would you go on the show today if you were single?
I do think it makes it extremely hard.
Do you want to break out of the Bachelor Nation label?
I’m so appreciative of that.
It’s exciting to see how people are going on this journey with me.
I love telling stories.
People started following me for my own love story.
It’s cool to be able to have the opportunity to do that.
Im paying homage to where I came from.
How isMistakes We Never Madedifferent from other romance novels?
I want to feel the depth of a character, the humanity.
Sometimes the character can not always be lovable.
Its not your story, but that element seems especially inspired by your own experiences.
And I’m like, true, valid.
So yeah, I guess thats like art imitating life.
Stephanie McNeal is a senior editor atGlamourand the authorofSwipe Up for More!
Inside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers.
