Hannah Brown Finally Shut Down Those 'DWTS' Dating Rumors For Good
When it comes to romance rumors, Hannah Brown has been at the center of quite a few. After all, she dated 30 men on national television when she starred in The Bachelorette in the summer of 2019… and the drama didn’t end for her when the show wrapped up. (Remember the Tyler Cameron and Gigi Hadid debacle? Yikes.) But for everyone who’s been shipping Hannah Brown and her DWTS partner Alan Bersten, I have sad news for you — they’re definitely not a couple, and Brown herself has confirmed that she’s single.
On Oct. 25, Brown sat down with guest host Justin Hartley on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to discuss her love life and her current stint on Dancing With The Stars. When Hartley asked point-blank if she was dating Bersten, Brown laughed but immediately shut him down. “No, I’m not,” she said. “We’re great friends. He kind of has to be my best friend, so I make him be. He cries about it.” Saying she still has “trauma from dating,” Brown noted, “we’re not going to do that right now. We’re going to dance.” This effectively put an end to weeks of speculation that Brown and Bersten were secretly dating. I mean, their chemistry on-screen is undeniable, so can you really blame folks for hoping this would be a thing?
Though Brown and Bersten have addressed the dating rumors before, their previous explanations have been suspiciously vague. On Sept. 30, they answered DWTS questions on Bersten’s Instagram — and in response to a fan asking, “Are y’all a thing?” Brown said, “Yeah, we’re a thing. Team Alan-bama Hannah!” Then, on Sept. 30, Brown told Us Weekly, “We are dance partners, and we have the best time together, and we have a friendship that is great.” Sure, she said “friendship,” but that didn’t stop people from speculating that there might be more to the story.
If Brown and Bersten were to date, this wouldn’t be the first time Bernsten has been romantically linked to a co-star. In 2018, he started dating Alexis Ren during their time on the show — they even kissed on-screen after admitting their feelings for one another. Bersten and Ren broke up two weeks after filming ended, and he has reportedly been single since that breakup.
Who’s to say what the future holds for Brown and Bersten? As Brown says, they’re “great friends,” which could potentially pave the way for a romantic connection later on. For now, though, Brown is focused on her own personal growth. In an Oct. 4 interview with Marie Claire, she revealed that she’s not jumping to get involved in another relationship anytime soon. “I am totally okay on my own,” she said. “I don’t want to have to have a man to feel whole. It’s not that I need that to feel like I have a full life.” And after all she's been through in the last year, it's really no surprise that she wants a break.
Thankfully, “Team Alan-bama Hannah” fans can still watch Brown and Bersten shimmy it out on DWTS every week — they both seem pretty determined to win that coveted mirrorball trophy.
