Clare Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette is still on, despite coronavirus-related film delays, a bit of drama, and an early Bachelor announcement. 

The 39-year-old first appeared on Juan Pablo’s season of The Bachelor in 2014. “I lost respect for you,” she told him as she walked away from him on the show. She appeared on seasons one and two of Bachelor in Paradise and then in 2018 did The Bachelor: Winter Games, where she got engaged to Benoit Beauséjour-Savard (though they eventually split). Now she is the oldest Bachelorette in franchise history. 

When Crawley was first announced as the 16th Bachelorette back in March, she said her age will work in her favor. “A lot of people put it out there as this negative thing, but for me, it just is more years under my belt, more learning and knowing what I want, what I don’t want and what I won’t settle for,” she said on Good Morning America at the time. 

Here’s everything we know about her season, now that there is a plan forward.

When will The Bachelorette season 16 start filming? ABC’s vice president of alternative programming, Rob Mills, laid the whole plan out during On Air With Ryan Seacrest on June 17. “For Clare’s season, which is going to come first, that’s going to shoot in about a month,” Mills said. “Everybody is going to be at one location. Everybody is going to be tested a week before. Everybody comes back negative, we shoot and they’re inside that bubble.” 

So yeah, starting some time in July, everyone will be quarantined together, and there will be no destination dates. In case you’re wondering, Matt James’s season will begin shooting sometime in September. Depending on COVID-19 restrictions, producers are hoping to loosen the reigns a bit. 

“We’re hoping to start on time, which will be the end of September, and we’ll see where the world is,” Mills told Seacrest. “Hopefully that’s when we would be at the Bachelor mansion. Maybe there’s some travel. Maybe it’s just domestic. Maybe it’s by bus, but we’ll see. If not, if things aren’t that safe, we’ll shoot it the same way [as Clare’s] where everybody is safe. They’re tested, they’re quarantined, and then you can have kissing, arguing and everything else.”

Which means, of course, Crawley’s season will not take place at the Bachelor Mansion. “They’ll be at some sort of resort, and we’ve scouted several of them, and all of them have been scouted for good date locations,” Mills explained. “We had incredible travel planned for Clare’s season. We were going to Italy—all these places that were going to be great—but there will be plenty of different date locations that will feel hopefully as close to The Bachelorette as possible.”

When will season 16 air? No news on a premiere date yet, but Adweek has reported that The Bachelorette will be moving to Tuesday nights instead of Mondays. 

Cool cool cool…Who are the contestants? Well, that’s kind of up in the air as well. After COVID-19 halted production, ABC had time to recast. Though you can take a look at the original batch of dudes here. 

At the time, the group of men were cast before Crawley was named The Bachelorette—not to mention before the franchise faced significant pushback over lack of diversity—and there were quite a number of guys who skewed a bit young. Now it seems they’ll have a chance to rectify both issues.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBWgDDUjutS” data-instgrm-version=”8″>“We are excited to move forward with both Matt James as the new Bachelor and Clare Crawley as our next Bachelorette,” The Bachelor’s executive producers shared in a statement on June 12. “We acknowledge our responsibility for the lack of representation of people of color on our franchise and pledge to make significant changes to address this issue moving forward. We are taking positive steps to expand diversity in our cast, in our staff, and most importantly, in the relationships that we show on television. We can and will do better to reflect the world around us and show all of its beautiful love stories.” 

Glamour will update this post as more Bachelorette news is shared. Make sure to check back. 

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