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Matt Rossi came on The Bachelorette, he confessed his love to ex Jenn Tran, and his fate hangs in the balance until next week’s episode. But as Bachelor Nation waits to see if Tran allows the 27-year-old insurance executive from Atlanta, Georgia to join the cast or sends him packing, you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the long travel journey Rossi took to crash the show.
In an earlier post, Decider broke down everything that Bachelorette fans needed to know about Rossi — including the fact that he had nearly 59,000 TikTok followers before appearing on the show (a bit of a red flag if you ask me, because who’s to say he’s not simply using Tran for clout…again).
Before Rossi met Jesse Palmer at the hotel in Episode 4, the franchise host explained that the aspiring Mr. Tran had an extremely long travel journey and flew himself to New Zealand on his own dime. The Bachelorette aired a short clip recorded from Rossi’s phone that showed the road en route to the hotel, but for those curious, Rossi shared a three-minute mashup of videos that document his 24+ hour journey from Colombia to New Zealand to be on The Bachelorette.
Captioned, “Yes the trip really was on my own dime,” the video shows Rossi explaining, “It’s the morning of the wedding here in Colombia. I’m leaving and heading to the airport soon to head to Aukland to see Jenn. Definitely am in my feels a bit. Nervous. I’m excited. Not really sure what’s gonna happen, but since Jenn was supposed to be here with me I figured I’d bring her something. It’s an emerald bracelet. Colombia’s known for their emerald I believe it’s their national stone. So since she couldn’t be here I figured I’d bring a little bit of Colombia to her. I’m gonna give it to her when I see her, hopefully she likes it.”
![Jenn Tran and Matt Rossi from 'The Bachelorette' Season 21](https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jenn-tran_f4cb25.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=300 300w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jenn-tran_f4cb25.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=640 640w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jenn-tran_f4cb25.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1280 1280w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jenn-tran_f4cb25.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=885 885w, https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/jenn-tran_f4cb25.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1284 1284w)
As mentioned when Rossi and Tran reunited on screen, it sounds like Tran had agreed to travel to Columbia with Rossi and accompany him to two weddings, but when Bachelorette filming conflicted with the trip she had to back out. The two reportedly dated three years ago for several months but recently reconnected as friends — or so Tran thought. (You can get the full story here.)
Rossi’s TikTok video shows him walking through airports explaining his long trip ahead. First he took a flight from Cartagena, Colombia to Bogotá, Colombia. Then he flew from Bogotá to Santiago, Chile. Finally, he traveled from Santiago to Auckland, New Zealand and headed straight to the hotel.
During layovers and airport sits, Rossi posed in front of a hot dog restaurant, telling his camera, “It’s only fitting that I sit next to the hot dog restaurant cause I am wiener boy for all.” He also stopped to scarf down a burger and fries, sharing, “It’s probably not a good idea to eat a hamburger before a six hour flight but obviously good ideas are out the door at this point.”
During his six-hour flight to Santiago, Rossi recorded a video from the bathroom where he admitted, “I’m freaking out a little bit on the second flight to Chile. I’m just at the point of no return. I’m really worried now that I’m coming into this late and that Jenn may have already found someone and that everything that I’m doing right now is for nothing. I’m just overthinking. I’m just sitting here for six hours. There’s kids screaming. They have no movies. I’m gonna try and get through it but I’m just having a bit of a tough time right now.”
As Bachelor Nation knows, Rossi survived the flight, went through immigration, rechecked his bag, and got on his flight to Auckland in time to see Tran before her Week 4 rose ceremony. But had he not sprinted through the airport, who knows where he’d be today!
After finally landing in Auckland, Rossi checked in before meeting Tran to say, “That was crazy…this is one of the most insane travel days I’ve ever done in my life. Skipped two weddings in Colombia to fly here. But hey those are the thing we do for love, right?”
The TikTok includes the car footage we saw on The Bachelorette, and the video stops when Rossi pulls up to the hotel where he met Jesse Palmer, bringing Bachelor Nation up to speed on everything they missed.
In the TikTok video’s comments, Jenn stans are already questioning if Rossi went on The Bachelorette for the right reasons (aka love!) or simply to extend his 15 minutes of fame. Only time will tell if Rossi gets another shot at love with the Season 21 lead or if he’ll make Decider’s list of Bachelorette villains, but for those wondering, he did confirm in the comments that the show did not reimburse him for all those flights. At least that’s something!
It’s not often the franchise leaves Bachelor Nation on a cliffhanger, but when it does happen, it’s always setting up something major. In Season 21, Episode 4, Sam N. was the only man to leave, because the episode cut off ahead of the Week 4 rose ceremony. Instead, we ended with Jenn contemplating her next move with Rossi, and judging from the Episode 5 teaser, she’s planning on keeping him around — or at least inviting him to the rose ceremony and giving the guys a good scare.
New episodes of The Bachelorette Season 21 premiere Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC with next-day streaming on Hulu. Be sure to read Decider’s pre-premiere interview with Jenn Tran for more exciting tidbits.