The Bachelorette Australia will feature an openly bisexual lead for the first time ever.
Australia's Channel 10 announced on Wednesday, May 19 that the dating series will star Brooke Blurton, who is openly bisexual and whose season will include a cast of both male and female contestants for her to date. The show is currently casting participants for Brooke's season, and a premiere date has yet to be announced.
This marks the first time globally that the franchise will have a mixed-gender cast for The Bachelor or The Bachelorette.
"I am not too sure if Australia is ready for it—I certainly am," Brooke told The Daily Telegraph on May 19. "If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does."
Brooke, 26, was a contestant for Nick Cummins' affections on the Australian version of The Bachelor in 2018, and she appeared on its Bachelor in Paradise the following year.
On May 19, the youth worker posted a photo to Instagram of herself to mark the momentous occasion. She captioned it, "I'm ready, I hope you are too!"
In the U.S., neither The Bachelor nor The Bachelorette has featured an openly bisexual lead, although Demi Burnett vied for Colton Underwood's affections on The Bachelor in 2019 and appeared on Bachelor in Paradise that summer with her girlfriend, Kristian Haggerty.
Jaimi King, who became the first openly bisexual cast member on the U.S. Bachelor when she competed for Nick Viall's roses, wrote an essay for Playboy in 2019 in which she described feeling "completely alone in this heteronormative reality-dating franchise."
Colton was a contestant on Becca Kufrin's The Bachelorette season in 2018 before becoming the lead for a cast of female contestants in 2019. Last month, he came out as gay during an interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts.
Click here to get full coverage of The Bachelorette's upcoming U.S. season starring Katie Thurston, whose premiere airs Monday, June 7 at 8 p.m on ABC.