On Bachelor in Paradise, a lot of the contestants come from the most recent seasons of The Bachelor and Bachelorette. But, there are some suitors from older seasons thrown in there, too, and this time around one of them is new Bachelor in Paradise arrival Chase McNary. Chase was on JoJo Fletcher's season of The Bachelorette in 2016, and his journey was quite a long one.
Chase came in third on JoJo's season, making the final three with runner-up Robby Hayes and winner Jordan Rodgers, and making it to fantasy suites... sort of. Chase's exit on The Bachelorette was particularly rough, because JoJo invited him to the fantasy suite and then rescinded her invitation. Basically, Chase's date went well enough that JoJo was willing to keep getting to know him with an overnight, camera-less stay. But, when he said he loved her after she read the fantasy suite card, that shocked her into realizing they weren't on the same page, and she sent him packing.
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Of course, he didn't take this well — how could anyone? — and he said, he "jumped over a hurdle that I’ve never done before, and now I’m skewered." Chase added, "You’ve 100 percent made me regret saying that. So now love equals ‘Get the fuck out?'"
You see, Chase had been slow opening up and expressing his emotions towards JoJo. (Well, probably regular speed for real life, but slow for The Bachelorette.) In the van as he was driven away, Chase said, "That’s like 'pull your pants down and let me kick you in the nuts.'"
He wasn't wrong, but next day, he came back ahead of the rose ceremony to apologize to JoJo for leaving in such a dramatic way. "I care too much to let our relationship end the way it did the other night," he told her.
As far as the rest of the season, Chase was involved in some mild beef with fellow BiP star Derek Peth. About mid-way through the season, Derek accused Chase, Jordan, Robby Hayes, and Alex Woytkiw of "ganging up" on him and creating a "Mean Girls clique." They all denied this, with Chase being particularly annoyed because Derek brought this up before a rose ceremony, but already had a rose. "Bad timing, bro," he said in his confessional. But, the drama didn't last too long. Chase and Derek had a two-on-one date on the next episode, and after they all learned the tango together, Derek was sent packing while "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" played in the background during his car ride away.
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Post-show, Chase was pretty outspoken about his Bachelorette experience in interviews. He said he regretted getting so upset during his exit from the series, and told ABC News, "I think at that moment I was ultimately just in so much shock and despair and confusion. Because the whole day prior to that and the whole hometown prior to that went so well that why would it go so wrong?"
Chase also talked about how he thought he was going to be the next Bachelor after JoJo's season, but it came down to the show keeping its options open. "I went through the negotiations, I accepted the offer, I signed the contract," he told Us Weekly in January 2017. "I talked to my family, friends, about being the Bachelor. It was the Monday before they announced it that they told me I wasn’t the Bachelor. So I found out with the rest of the world that it was Nick [Viall]."
Well, now Chase gets another shot at love and potentially another Bachelor audition — it seems like Derek has him bested in that area this time, though.