A lot of Bachelor fans were disappointed to learn that Kelley Flanagan wouldn't be at the Women Tell All. Despite being in Los Angeles for her birthday weekend at the same time as the February 21 taping, Kelley was allegedly not invited to the Bachelor: WTA for reasons unknown. Many fans on reddit screencapped messages that they claim are from Kelley, supposedly confirming that she was not invited. And since Kelley was in L.A. (confirmed numerous times by her Instagram posts and stories) on Feb. 21, the claims do gain a certain amount of momentum. (ABC did not immediately respond to Refinery29's request for comment.) Her absence could have a much larger consequence, though.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
No matter the reason for her absence, without the platform given to Bachelor contestants on the WTA, she's probably pretty done with Bachelor nation, in general. Sorry, Kelley stans.
Missing WTA is a pretty clear indication that Bachelor in Paradise isn't the next stop for Kelley — though I'm pretty sure Kelley wouldn't even want to go on BiP in the first place. The Women Tell All often serves as an audition for future BiP recruits — we get to see who can play referee, who is beloved by her cohorts, and who is likely to stir the pot all over that beach. We won't be seeing that from Kelley.
And despite an endorsement from fans and even Peter himself, she was also not given the next Bachelorette spot. Peter had previously told Entertainment Tonight that she would have been "an amazing" Bachelorette. "Kelley would kill it. Kelley is so ready, Kelley is one of the smartest people I've met," Peter said. "[She has] such a strong presence … I definitely had questions at first if she was really ready and wanted this. I was wrong, she truly was."
Of course, Kelley wasn't the only one shut out, since non-Peter contestant Clare Crawley was announced as the Bachelorette on March 2.
It's unclear why Kelley wouldn't have been present at the WTA after being such a major player on Peter Weber's season, but she did like several tweets about her having not been invited. Add that to the reddit sleuthing and we've got a little conspiracy theory on our hands. This was one of the slew of tweets she liked:
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
me finding out kelley wasn’t invited back for WTA #TheBachelor pic.twitter.com/rHdPMjKgli
— meg (@makinbaconmegan) February 25, 2020
She'd also liked some shady tweets about Peter in the past, so that probably didn't help her Bachelor Nation standing.
Unfortunately for all the Kelley fans out there, it seems her time on Bachelor Nation TV may be officially over. But regardless of her TV future, Kelley is beloved by her fellow contestants. So many of them recently spent time with her for her birthday, including Mykenna Dorn, Kelsey Weier, Sydney Hightower, and more. So sure, you can take the girl off of The Bachelor, but you can't take The Bachelor experience away from the girl.