Photo: Instagram
The Bachelor alum has a new girlfriend.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Jun 21, 2019
The upcoming season of Bachelor in Paradise is shaping up to be an exciting ride. The new cast has been announced and it includes a lot of fan favorites who will be deciding whether or not to hook up with one another.
But one contestant may already know who she’s going home with at the end of the season. Demi Burnett will be appearing on the show and rumor has it that her off-screen love interest will be joining the cast as well, in a first for the franchise. Another twist? Demi’s love interest is a woman. The two will be the first same sex couple to appear on any Bachelor show.
What’s going on with Demi and her girlfriend? Read on for all the juicy details. Who is Demi Burnett?
1. Bachelor
Demi was a contestant on Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor, Men's Health writes. She made waves from the very beginning trying to command as much attention as possible. But by episode six, she took it too far when she went to find Colton after one of his dates with another contestant and told him: “You give me so much and every moment that I spend with you it leaves me wanting more. I now feel like I am falling in love with you.” Colton felt overwhelmed and decided that was the end of the road for his relationship with Demi and he eliminated her from the show on the spot, saying: "I appreciate you saying that to me. There’s a part of me that just doesn’t know if we can get there. I just don’t know right now if I can see myself with you at the end of this," he said. "I can’t sit here, and after hearing that tonight, put you through a rose ceremony."
She appeared on The Bachelor.
2. Bachelorette
Demi didn’t move from Bachelor hopeful to Bachelorette but her friend Hannah Brown did. Producers then offered her and fellow alum Katie Morton a chance to be there for Hannah B. by playing spy in a van outside the filming location. She told Entertainment Tonight: "We were listening in to all the conversations with Hannah and the guys, and all the convos between the guys. We were just trying to make sure everyone was there for her." Demi hoped that she was using the opportunity for herself as well, saying: "I mean, if I do go to [Bachelor in] Paradise, like, I definitely was scoping them out, and I was like, 'Hannah, save that one for me!"
3. Paradise
There was not question that Demi was ready to join the Bachelor in Paradise cast. She told Entertainment Tonight that she was hoping to have the opportunity, saying: “We're renaming it Demi-dise if I go. I'm going to run that beach. I gotta be the queen. You know me; it's going to be really fun. I'm just going to have a lot of fun.” She went on to talk about strategy for the show saying, “I'm going to be open-minded and I'm not going to, like, jump into something right away. I think I need to weigh out all my options. I think it would be easy to get really involved with someone right away, but then it's Paradise, and people can come in later, so what if someone comes in later? I just need to keep it open and play the field.”
4. One woman woman
As it turns out, however, Demi’s experience on the show won’t be about keeping her options open at all. According to TV Shows Ace, blogger Reality Steve reports that starting early in the process she will be joined by her current love interest: a woman named Kristian Haggerty. Demi plans to use the show as an opportunity tor reveal that she is bisexual, something that producers knew going into shooting. Kirstian’s presence on the beach with Demi is planned and it looks like she’ll be there for the duration. Reality Steve says: “Demi talked about it with producers, she knew Kristian was gonna be brought in after filming had started, and she wanted to use the show as an outlet to come out as bisexual. They’re not having Kristian battle over other men for Demi or anything like that. They are there and they are a couple and, seemingly, I guess just seeing where it goes. But the fact they didn’t leave together right away makes me think these two will stay til the very end.”
5. Groundbreaking
This relationship set up is a brand new twist on the Bachelor in Paradise paradigm and it will be interesting for audiences to see how it plays out. Demi and Kristian will also be the first same sex couple ever featured on the show.
So far we don’t have any spoilers on how this on-screen romance will be playing out on Bachelor in Paradise but, as always, Demi will be providing lots of good television moments.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.