Jenn Tran Considers Her Bachelorette Run A Lesson Learned
“Would I do it again? Probably not,” she says. But she’s shaking it off and moving forward.
Jenn Tran went through 25 breakups over the past year — 26 if you include her elimination on Joey Graziadei's season of The Bachelor, which was filmed in October 2023. For Tran, it’s been a formative 12 months. “If you're just in one relationship, you're learning so much. I was in 25 of them, so I feel like I came out of that recognizing what I want a lot better,” the 26-year-old physician assistant student from New Jersey tells Elite Daily. While most Bachelor alums don’t consider every contestant an ex, during Tran’s stint as Bachelorette, she took all her suitors seriously, even Jonathan Johnson when he showed up on Night 1 in a fake face cast and hospital gown.
Devin Strader eventually earned Tran’s final rose on The Bachelorette, and they ended the season happily engaged. But two months later, Strader called off the engagement, breaking up with Tran over the phone. Though this revelation came as a shock to many viewers, Tran says now that she did have her doubts about him. “I do trust my gut. My intuition is always telling me something,” she says. “Even with Devin, there was a point where I felt that it was too good to be true.”
Seeing her relationship play out in front of the masses was a challenge, and it brought back a lot of vulnerable feelings she had while filming the show. “There were certain moments where I was like, ‘Am I picking the wrong guy? Am I the problem?’ My deepest, darkest fears occasionally came out,” she says. “And when you’re revealing your insecurities on such a public platform, it makes you feel very naked.”
The exes’ first post-breakup confrontation happened on-camera during After The Final Rose. As Tran cried on-air, host Jesse Palmer asked if they should all — including Strader — watch the proposal back for the first time. “Do I have a choice?” Tran asked.
The scene that followed was painful: Tran cried while watching her proposal in front of Palmer, a live studio audience, and the ex who broke her heart. Bachelorette fans didn’t relish the drama, either. Many expressed the belief that the show failed to protect the franchise’s first-ever Asian American lead. As one wrote on X, formerly called Twitter, “Tonight is extra frustrating bc the head producers JUST did a big interview with the LA Times about how they’re committed to protecting their leads of [color] and owning up to past failures. They did not protect Jenn.” (Since the finale aired on Sept. 3, allegations about Strader burglarizing his college ex-girlfriend’s apartment in 2017 — defying her restraining order against him — have come to light. On Sept. 19, Strader said the reports were “severely misconstrued” in a statement on Instagram.)
Despite her season’s messy ending, Tran still found value in taking on the role and representing her heritage. “I never really had a strong Asian American community growing up because I lived in a very white suburban town,” Tran says. “I feel more in touch with my identity and culture than ever.”
Somebody can promise you the world, but if they're not backing it up with effort, then that's your answer.
She also learned plenty from her relationship with Strader — specifically, what not to settle for. “Somebody can promise you the world, but if they're not backing it up with effort, then that's your answer,” she says. Going forward, she’s looking for more consistency and honesty from a partner. “Being on a dating show, you learn so much about emotional intelligence. It can help you figure out what you really want in a relationship.”
Most breakups necessitate a mourning period, but it doesn’t seem like Tran is falling into the melancholic trap of sad girl autumn. It’s been over a month since the duo broke up, so some of that obligatory wallowing happened quietly, while Tran was keeping the show’s ending spoiler-free for fans. Since AFR, Strader’s behavior — he posted a 13-minute video to tell his side of the story and shared private texts from Tran — has solidified his villain narrative. While he’s turned into the enemy No. 1 for Bachelorette fans, Tran’s story arc is on a completely different trajectory.
The newly minted Dancing With The Stars contestant has become more of a relatable fan-favorite than ever. In one memorable TikTok clip from a recent trip to Boston, where she threw the first pitch at a Red Sox game, Tran was filmed on top of a bar leading a cheer: “F*ck Devin.” Yet the negativity isn’t what she’s carrying with her. “I don't have regrets. I'm so grateful for the learning experience,” she says, before adding, “Would I do it again? Probably not. I've had my fair share of putting it all out there.”
Still, she did make some lasting connections from her season. Since filming wrapped, Tran’s newfound friendship with her third-place pick Johnson has fans cheering her on (and it’s prompted some dating rumors, too). Still, Tran isn’t eager to jump back into the dating scene. “I'm probably in The Tortured Poets Department [era] right now. I'm still healing, and I don’t know when I’ll be ready to find my Travis Kelce,” the longtime Swiftie says. “I'm actively not looking, and my heart's definitely not in the right place yet.”
Her love life isn’t her main priority — a welcome break for someone who spent the majority of the past year on TV shows about finding the one. Instead of focusing on what went wrong, Tran is looking at what’s ahead. She’s all-in on this season of DWTS, a process she dove into just one day after filming her breakup convo on AFR.
“Now that I have a bit of a platform, I want to be able to build something with it,” she says. “I want to do something that makes me fulfilled, and so that's what I'm going to be searching for.” She hasn’t found it yet, but she’s optimistic about what’s to come.
As for when she’ll get back to her love story? Right now, Tran’s content with keeping romance on pause. “But one day, if it comes and I feel ready, I'm not going to push it away.”
