USF alumnus cast for ‘The Bachelorette’

USF students, faculty and alumni will get the chance to watch a former Bull compete against 30 other men for the heart of one woman in the upcoming season of “The Bachelorette.”

Garin Flowers, a USF alumnus and former student body president, will appear on Season 16 of the ABC show.

Flowers, a Fort Lauderdale native, graduated from USF in 2009 with a degree in mass communications and was active in many organizations while he was a student, including USF Orientation and the fraternity Omega Psi Phi.

The now-34-year-old was also a street team volunteer for the homecoming committee and later on became the director of public relations for homecoming.

After graduating, Flowers started his career in media as a TV reporter in Tallahassee at WCTV for two and a half years and he was in the news media field for seven and a half years. WTSP, the CBS station in Tampa, was the final TV station he worked for before leaving the news world behind and heading to Los Angeles. It also was the station that he worked at when he was nominated for a Suncoast News Emmy.

Today, Flowers is a TV host for Cinemark Theatres where he speaks with cast members in movies that are soon to be released. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart were interviewed by Flowers before “Jumanji: The Next Level” was released.

Aside from his career in entertainment, Flowers is a professor and media strategist at the University of Southern California Annenberg.

Along with his other accomplishments, Flowers can now add that he was a contestant on “The Bachelorette” to his resume.

This season of “The Bachelorette” is unique in comparison to the other 15 seasons. Due to COVID-19, Season 16 is being filmed at La Quinta by Wyndham in Palm Springs, California, instead of at multiple locations across the U.S. and even around the world.

Despite the challenges set by the coronavirus during filming, an internal issue is rumored to have risen while filming involving who would be the actual Bachelorette.

Crawley, a 39-year-old woman who was a contestant on Season 18 of “The Bachelor,” Seasons 1 and 2 of “Bachelor In Paradise” (BIP) and Season 1 of “Bachelor Winter Games,” was cast as the leading lady for this season of “The Bachelorette.” 

However, Crawley allegedly left the show after only 12 days of filming, claiming that she already found her true love among the contestants.

Although ABC has not announced her departure from the show, Entertainment Tonight (ET) correspondent Lauren Zima, who also hosts a popular Bachelor Franchise recap show on YouTube and is Bachelor Franchise shows host Chris Harrison’s girlfriend, posted on Aug. 3 via Instagram that the new lead for “The Bachelorette” would be Tayshia Adams, a contestant on “The Bachelor” Season 23 and “BIP” Season 6.

Before the filming of Season 16 was supposed to begin in March, a list of the original cast of 30 men was released to the public, but it was taken down when production made the decision to withhold filming.

Flowers was not listed in the original cast, but rather was an addition when it was re-announced in July.

ABC released a brief preview of what viewers can expect to see in the beginning of Crawley’s journey as the bachelorette. In the preview, Flowers can be seen standing in a maroon-colored suit near Crawley as she raises a glass to toast to her first night meeting the contestants.

The new season of “The Bachelorette” airs on Tuesday, Oct. 13, so viewers will have to wait about a month before they can see the USF graduate appear on what is considered to be the third most popular reality show in the U.S., according to Empire Today.