'Bachelor' Grant and Juliana dish on their secret engagement, life after finale

USA Today

26-03-2025

'Bachelor' Grant and Juliana dish on their secret engagement, life after finale The afternoon after the "Bachelor" finale aired, lead Grant Ellis and fiancée Juliana Pasquarosa were finally allowed to open up about how they navigated the months since filming wrapped.
Spoiler alert: The following contains details about the ending of "The Bachelor" Season 29.
BURBANK, Calif. ‒ After a night of "one too many drinks" with "all of our close people," Juliana Pasquarosa and Grant Ellis are back under the glare of studio lights. And for the first time, they can finally open up about their engagement after Monday night's finale of ABC's "The Bachelor."
As Pasquarosa, 28, has her lipstick touched up by a makeup artist, she and Ellis, 31, show the lighthearted rapport they'd developed while in hiding these past several months to avoid spoiling the outcome of the 29th season. Ellis makes his fiancée laugh with a SpongeBob SquarePants impression, and when the crew is ready to get the cameras rolling on our interview, the two align their body language to present a united front.
Pasquarosa clutches Ellis' hand on her thigh, her emerald-cut engagement ring glinting in the lights. After a hectic day of interviews, the famished couple is ready for their promised catered lunch but buoyed by their now-public love.
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While secretly engaged since last fall, the two learned a good deal about each other: Being alone off-camera was when "the real relationship building" happened, Pasquarosa says.
She admits it wasn't easy to sequester again during their "happy couple's weekends," where the show's producers arrange for the lovebirds to privately spend time together while their love story is unfolding on TV.
"It was hard to do the happy couple's (weekend) in the sense of being locked away and cut off again from your friends and family, but we crushed it," Pasquarosa says.
Ellis later adds: "We definitely used that as an opportunity to grow. We worked through watching the show, we worked through the kinks and we're pushing through."
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Grant and Juliana have leaned on Joey Graziadei and Joan Vassos for advice
While the couple's friends and family offered valuable advice for navigating an engagement that most people can't relate to ‒ which involved Pasquarosa watching her fiancé explore romantic relationships with two dozen other women ‒ "Bachelor" franchise alumni also offered their wisdom.
Last year's "Bachelor" couple, Joey Graziadei and his fiancée, Kelsey Anderson, are "great people," Ellis says. "They've been supporting us and reaching out."
Inaugural "Golden Bachelorette" Joan Vassos and her final-rose recipient, Chock Chapple, have also reached out to the couple, Ellis reveals.
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Pasquarosa believes she "did come in a little naïve, and I'm still trying to figure it out." So frequent check-ins from Anderson (engaged to Graziadei for 16 months) and messages of support from a couple of her fellow contestants were very welcome.
"I can't wait to pick Kelsey's brain about the next steps in life," Pasquarosa says. "There's so few people in this world that go through the ('Bachelor') process. It's important to hear them out and understand what works for them."
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Despite a shorter season, Grant thinks 'six weeks was enough'
If Season 29 felt rushed, that's because at nine episodes, Grant's journey was two shorter than the last two "Bachelor" seasons. (Bachelor Nation hasn't seen a season this short since 2008.)
Ellis confesses that as a typically decisive person, he would've liked "a little more time to be able to sit and think things through." The shorter filming schedule "definitely had an impact" on his experience, but despite having less time to process, he's resolute in knowing he'd made the right choice.
"I'm happy with my decision," he says. "And if I had to go back. I'll pick the same thing a million times over. So I guess six weeks was enough."
Pasquarosa certainly had enough of the jet-setting and worrying about whether the man she loved would choose her, too. "I don't think I would have lasted if it was any longer. I was ready to go home," she says.
That might've been in part because she'd "burned to a crisp" during the last leg of their journey in the Dominican Republic. "I was spiraling in the sun and then I just sat there... And then I realized what was happening and I had to be on camera, and I wore a red dress," she laments.
Ellis was nonetheless smitten. "She wears a tan really well," he says lovingly.
Juliana will return to work, Grant looks forward to traveling
Pasquarosa secured her job as a client service associate at a Newton, Massachusetts, salon three months before she left to film "The Bachelor." But her workplace has been "so supportive of me" during her foray into reality TV, she says.
As things settle down, "I plan to go back and stick with them and do the best that I can to provide them a quality employee because that's the top priority," she says. "And I like the security of having a job."
Ellis is proud of the work he's done in his five years as a day trader ‒ a job that now allows him to "do what I want when I want" ‒ and looks forward to exploring the world with Pasquarosa. And this time, without the constraints of the show, they can travel together.
"We're going to be everywhere," he says.