Who’s Missing From ’The Bachelorette’ Reunion? Why Gabby Windey & More Skipped
What To Know
- Seventeen former Bachelorette leads and Joan Vassos reunited ahead of Taylor Frankie Paul’s upcoming season.
- There were six Bachelorette leads missing from the event, which filmed in November 2025, for various reasons.
- The special will air on Sunday, March 15, after the Oscars.
Before a new season of The Bachelorette begins with Taylor Frankie Paul, several of the show’s former leads are reuniting for a “Before the First Rose” special on Sunday, March 15. Back in November, Paul was joined by 17 former leads, as well as The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos, to film the special.
“Before the First Rose” will feature the 18 alum “[looking] back on their unforgettable journeys, [sharing] juicy behind-the-scenes stories, and [offering] heartfelt advice to the newest leading lady, Taylor Frankie Paul.”
But there were six former Bachelorettes who did not attend the taping: Jen Schefft (Season 3), Jillian Harris (Season 5), Clare Crawley (Season 16), Michelle Young (Season 18), Gabby Windey (Season 19), and Jenn Tran (Season 21). Scroll down for what we know about their absences.
Jen Schefft
Schefft did not publicly reveal the reason for her absence and is not very active on social media, so it’s unclear what she was up to when the group got together in November 2025.
The Season 3 star notably also missed out on the 2019 reunion for the show’s 15th season. At the time, then-host Chris Harrison explained, “We had to settle on a date. At the end of the day, we had to shoot this thing,. So, we just picked a day where we could get as many as we possibly could, but unfortunately schedules, vacations, was one of them, just couldn’t be changed. And we just had to pull the trigger and do this thing.”
Jillian Harris
It’s unclear why Harris was not part of the reunion special. The mom of two has been keeping busy with her multiple businesses and life as an entrepreneur in Canada. One Reddit user claimed she was “nursing her husband” after he had back surgery at the time the reunion was filmed.
Clare Crawley
Crawley explained on her Instagram Story in February 2026 that she was “super sick” when the taping took place in November. “The producers asked me to come, and I thought about it since it would be nice to see all the ladies,” she admitted.
However, when she found out that the event would require her to “rehash things from six years ago,” she decided that it was going to be a “hard pass.”
Michelle Young
While Young did not specifically talk about her absence from the reunion, she did open up about dealing with health issues around the time the event took place. Young married her husband, Jack Leius, in June 2025, and they set off for their honeymoon in Italy four months later. However, they had to end their trip early because Young’s health “couldn’t keep up,” she revealed.
“For the last 8 months to a year I’ve been battling with extreme fatigue, brain fog, panic attacks, heart palpitations, hypoglycemia, and POTS-like symptoms,” Young shared at the beginning of November. “After a number of tests came back normal, we thought it could be stress and anxiety with the wedding until all the symptoms remained months after the wedding passed. Doctors haven’t been able to find anything until recently getting the results of a Mycotoxin and Mold test showing I’ve been SEVERELY exposed and my body has been working hard to fight it all off.”
After receiving the troubling test results, Young had to do “an intense detox along with many medications and IV therapy” so her body could get rid of all the toxins.
Gabby Windey
Windey did not give an explanation for her absence, but she has mostly distanced herself from The Bachelor franchise in recent years and has been keeping busy with tons of other projects.
In 2025, she filmed the new dating show Love Overboard, which she is hosting, and was recently confirmed to be part of the cast of the upcoming comedy film Peaked. She likely had another commitment at the time of filming.
Jenn Tran
Tran was unable to attend the reunion because she was in Paris on a birthday trip with her mom. She is also currently in physician’s assistant school in Miami, so she’s been keeping very busy with other commitments.
The Bachelorette Reunion, Sunday, March 15, 10:30/9:30c, ABC
The Bachelorette, Season 22 Premiere, Sunday, March 22, 8/7c, ABC
