Joey Regrets Skipping This Bachelor Tradition

When viewers met Joey Graziadei on Charity Lawson’s Bachelorette season, the tennis instructor’s laid-back attitude and Midwestern optimism made him a fast favorite. But his easygoing demeanor was complicated during Hometowns, when his uncle raised concerns that he wasn’t being “the genuine Joey.”

Bachelor Nation hopes to discover that side of him when his season of The Bachelor begins on Jan. 22. The 28-year-old Pennsylvania native wrote that he’s “grown immensely” since his time with Charity last spring. Still, that didn’t make this new journey less daunting.

“I’d [go back and] tell myself just to have fun [being the Bachelor],” Joey tells Bustle about Season 28. “I put a lot of pressure on myself through this whole thing, and I know it can get to me sometimes.”

His run, which has been advertised as “the most romantic season in Bachelor history,” has plenty of surprises. And while Joey intended to forge his own path, he wouldn’t have minded a heads-up on some of the season’s curveballs. “I definitely didn’t expect to be dating sisters,” he says, referencing contestants Lauren and Allison Hollinger. “That was out of left field.”

Below, Joey talks about his Bachelor style, the Golden Wedding, and one of his biggest regrets.

People have been loving your Bachelor style. Was there a conscious decision to up your fashion game?

I got to give credit to all the stylists. They were trying to do different stuff, and they knew I was very open. We were willing to take a couple risks.

Of course, there’s been pun after pun about playing tennis — and some slow-mo action shots in the trailers, too. Was there a point when you were like, How much further can we take this?

We’re only going to go further. In general, there’s a lot of tennis throughout the whole season. You’ll see more of it. And it’s part of me, so I love it. The sport has given me so much, so any nod I can give to it, [I will]. The puns definitely can be a lot, but you just got to run with it.

You were at The Golden Wedding. What did you take away from that experience?

Seeing their love and having that night of celebration was amazing. I was also meeting all those alumni. I really connected with Wells [Adams] and Dean [Unglert]. I knew Ben [Higgins] a little bit before, and there were a lot of great people there: Charity [Lawson] and Dotun [Olubeko], Kaity [Biggar] and Zach [Shallcross], Brayden [Bowers] and Christina [Mandrell]. To all be together in one place was a ton of fun.

On that note, I read that some alums offered to give you tips, but you said, “No thanks.” Now that you’ve been through filming, do you wish you’d taken them up on it?

I can admit when I’m wrong, and I was naive. I could have taken some help. My mindset was, I want it to feel like my own experience. I don’t want to be changed in any way. It was no disrespect to them. And very quickly, I was like, Damn, I should have talked to some people. It’d be nice to have some insight.

We don’t know how your season ends, but theoretically, did The Golden Wedding make you think you’d be interested in a TV wedding?

It’s definitely something that’s in the back of your head. But you’re going to have to wait to watch the season and see if I’m even having a wedding.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.