Hannah Brown Is the Next ‘Bachelorette’ 2019 Star (VIDEO)

Samantha Westfall March 12, 2019, 9:40 pm

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Chris Harrison and Hannah Brown — ABC/John Fleenor

Tonight’s finale of The Bachelor Season 23 was full of surprises as Colton Underwood chased after Cassie Randolph to convince her to give their relationship a chance (and it worked?!). So after all of that emotional turmoil, we were glad to be a little less shocked with the Bachelorette 2019 announcement!

For months, fans had been theorizing over who the next Season 15 star could be from this crop of Bachelor contestants like Caelynn Miller-Keyes, Tayshia Adams, Hannah Godwin and more. But the strongest rumor was that Hannah Brown was the likely pick for the role, which seemed to be confirmed with the Alabama beauty’s appearance on The Women Tell All.

And that intel was confirmed during tonight’s After the Final Rose special during the finale: Miss Alabama USA Hannah Brown is your new Bachelorette!

Hannah (no longer Hannah B.!) came out looking totally gorgeous in red and already looking like the lead.

“I feel all the emotions. But honestly, I’m just really grateful for this opportunity,” she told Chris Harrison.

When he asked her about what her family thinks of the big news, she said, “My family has been really supportive of me and is really happy. They have made me who I am, so they trust me and love me and ultimately want me to have love, too.”

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They then showed a clip from a couple of weeks ago of Harrison asking Hannah over FaceTime whether she thinks she could pull off the gig before telling her she’s the Bachelorette, bringing her to tears.

Back on the After the Final Rose stage, she said of finding love on the show, “It didn’t happen for me my first time around, but I do believe it can happen. I’m just really just so grateful and honored that people saw my heart and I get to continue showing that and somebody will hopefully share their heart with me.”

(ABC/Craig Sjodin)

Her season couldn’t start soon enough, apparently, as Hannah geared up to meet her first five contestants live on the stage. When asked what kind of guys she’s looking for, she shared, “I hope they can put words together, maybe better than me at first. And maybe that initial spark.”

And now, about those first guys she met! The first was Luke, who gushed about how Hannah was the only girl he wanted to be the Bachelorette. Then Dustin came out with two glasses of champagne, proposing a toast (and he even adorably stumbled over his words just like Hannah!).

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Third, we met Cam from Austin, Texas, who rapped to the Bachelorette, and after that was Connor, who joked about his tall height by bringing a stool so they could look “eye-to-eye.” Finally, we met another Luke (this one is Luke S.) who got a bit risqué telling Hannah, “For you, I’d go down anytime.” Uh, OK!

Then it was time for Hannah to give out her first rose (does this count as the First Impression Rose?), and the lucky recipient was… Cam! Guess that rap worked.