No One In Jojo’s Bachelorette Cast Was Who We Thought They Were Back In 2016

If there's one thing that The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever! has emphasized, it's that Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants don't just disappear off the face of the Earth after their seasons end. (At least not anymore.) Thanks to social media, sponcon, and Bachelor in Paradise, contestants live on after they're rejected by the lead. And there is perhaps no season more representative of that than Joelle "JoJo" Fletcher's season. Many of JoJo's Bachelorette contestants went on to become famous Bachelor all-stars... or infamous internet people. And most of them were completely misjudged when they were on the show.

Part of that is because it was clear from episode 1 that JoJo was going to choose Jordan Rodgers. He got the first impression rose. He was relatively peaceful. He was a former football player with vaguely concerning, but not deal-breaking family drama. The signs were all there that he was the one. And because JoJo basically picked her winner at the start, there was way more drama between the guys than there was with the Bachelorette. And there was a lot of it. Shirts were ripped. Lunchmeat was eaten aggressively. Threats were issued.

But even with all the focus on these men, so much has been revealed about who they really are in the years after the show. From the pot-stirrers to the "normal ones," here are the guys who were not exactly who they appeared to be on JoJo's season.

We have to start with Chad. He was the villain of the season, but he wasn't just a villain in the Bachelorette way. He was rude to JoJo. He constantly threatened people. He punched a door and made his hand bleed. He ripped Evan Bass' shirt. He was just a generally aggressive, unpredictable person. But, his edit on the show played into a lot of this in a humorous way. Fans laughed at the fact that he was shown eating a lot of lunchmeat and biting into a raw sweet potato.

After the season ended, it was clearer than ever that there was nothing funny about Johnson. He was kicked off on the first episode of Bachelor in Paradise season 3 for making aggressive and offensive comments towards two women contestants.

Since then, he's done things like purchasing the domain names of other Bachelor stars and making them redirect to his Instagram page, and going on a lengthy Twitter rant against other contestants. More recently, he was arrested for alleged robbery with a domestic violence enhancement, as reported by Entertainment Tonight. He told ET that the issue stemmed from him taking and throwing his ex-girlfriend's phone. "There was never any domestic abuse of any kind, I have never laid hands on a woman any time in my entire life," he said in a statement.

Clearly, a lot has gone on, but this is not someone who should have even been cast in the first place, especially not as the "hilarious" bad guy in the house. It would have been better for all of us and probably for Johnson, too. The red flags were all there.

Bass was one of Johnson's primary nemeses. Unfortunately, while Rodgers was the cool nemesis, Derek Peth was the sensitive nemesis, and Alex Woytkiw was the aggressive-but-on-the-right-side-of-things nemesis, Evan was presented as the pathetic nemesis. Johnson ripped Bass' shirt because he made fun of him on a stand-up comedy group date. He was made fun of for being an erectile dysfunction doctor. He got a nosebleed. The guy didn't stand a chance with JoJo and was kind of the laughing stock of the season even though he was just being — rightly! — anti-Chad.

How times have changed. Evan went on to star on season 3 of Bachelor in Paradise, where he ended up with Carly Waddell after some questionable flirting methods. They got married on TV with Chris Harrison officiating, and they now have two kids. He is also a beloved Bachelor tweeter.

On The Bachelorette, James Taylor was just known as a sweet singer-songwriter. There really wasn't much else to him. He was sent packing the week before hometowns.

Now, he tries to stay relevant by tweeting about the Bachelor franchise, including shaming Bachelorette Hannah Brown for expressing her sexuality on the show. He also tweets in support of Donald Trump, as well as various offensive things, including disgusting and xenophobic Coronavirus comments. Turns out we didn't know James Taylor at all.

Wells was a quiet DJ, who seemed both too timid (his first words to Jojo were "You're so out of my league it's ridiculous") and too cool to be on The Bachelorette (the guy took his cast photo in a jean jacket rather than a V-neck tee, hello!). When he finally got a one-on-one date with JoJo, he was super nervous to kiss her and when they finally did, it was his biggest moment on the show.

Now, he's a very outspoken member of the Bachelor franchise. He went on BiP season 3 and returned as the bartender for seasons 4, 5, and 6. He also is one of the Bachelor alums who is the most famous outside of the fandom thanks to his relationship with his fiancée, Modern Family star Sarah Hyland.

In addition to these fine and not-so-fine gentlemen, there are some other guys from JoJo's season who stayed in fans' minds following the series, but did things that were either not shocking or that were in line with who they seemed to be on the show. For instance, Chase McNary dated Tomi Lahren — weird, yes, but we weren't made to expect he wouldn't do that. Runner-up Robby Hayes went on Bachelor in Paradise, started a tumultuous relationship with Amanda Stanton, appeared on Vanderpump Rules, and now stars on the MTV series Siesta Key — all sounds about right. Daniel Maguire went on BiP and still acted pretty bizarre and passionately Canadian. Derek also joined the show and still seemed pretty nice.

The lesson here is: When it comes to Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants, what you're seeing isn't the entire person. You're getting the parts of that person that best fit the narrative the producers chose for them. They might be worse. They might be better. They might spew offensive political commentary. They might make a career out of appearing on random reality shows.

And if we're basing all of our thoughts about them on one TV show, we're missing a lot.