What to know about Lea Cayanan, the 'Bachelor' contestant who nabbed the first impression rose after throwing away her secret advantage
Disney/John Fleenor
- Warning: Spoilers ahead for the season 28 premiere of "The Bachelor."
- In the first episode, lead Joey Graziadei gives the first impression rose to Lea Cayanan.
- Here's what to know about the 23-year-old Hawaii resident and her growing connection with Joey.
Joey Graziadei's season of "The Bachelor" premiered Monday, and while most of the 32 women vying for his heart on the first night were complete strangers, there was one familiar face — 23-year-old Lea Cayanan, who Joey previously met during the "After the Final Rose" special in 2023.
Lea (pronounced "Leia," as in, the "Star Wars" princess) was in the audience at the season finale for Charity Lawson's season of "The Bachelorette," which ultimately featured Joey and Dotun Olubeko as the finalists. During the finale, which aired in August, Charity accepted a proposal from Dotun after breaking things off with Joey, who was later named the next Bachelor.
Here's everything to know about Lee and her burgeoning connection with Joey.
Lea is an account manager from Waipahu, Hawaii
According to her bio on ABC's website, Lea loves "painting, hiking and being by the ocean," and is also an avid cliff-diver. In addition to her outdoor passions, she also plays the flute.
As for her romantic relationships, Lea's bio says that she doesn't like casual dating, and generally takes her romantic pursuits seriously.
"She is ready to be wifed up and is a sucker for big romantic gestures," her bio reads.
Lea and Joey first met during the 'After the Final Rose' special which aired in August
After host Jesse Palmer announced during "After the Final Rose" that Joey was going to be the next star of "The Bachelor," he revealed that Joey would get to meet one of his contestants right then and there. Lea was pulled from the audience, and she and Joey got to exchange hellos.
Lea also received a special envelope with a secret advantage from producers that she was forbidden to open until arriving at the mansion. And on Monday's episode of "The Bachelor," Lea finally opens the envelope, revealing that she now has the ability to "steal" a one-on-one date from another woman at any point in the season up until the "Hometown" dates portion of the series.
Lea grows emotional upon learning of her advantage, and tearfully points out that stealing a date from a woman in the house would not only put her at odds with her fellow "Bachelor" contestants, but could also affect Joey's own connections with the women.
She ultimately decides to get rid of her advantage after explaining the situation to Joey. Lea notes that if she's going to form a strong connection with Joey, their chemistry would allow them to do so regardless of whether or not she steals a date from someone else. She's shown throwing her card into the fire, to cheers and applause from other women in the house.
Lea's bold move causes Joey to give her the coveted first impression rose
In a recent interview with Business Insider ahead of the "Bachelor" season 28 premiere, Joey said he was "impressed" by Lea's decision to burn her advantage.
"I think that it's something that no one knows how they're going to act unless they were in that situation. Everyone says, 'I would've done this, I would've done that.' But it's a whole different animal when you're actually handed that card," Joey told BI.
"I said it the whole time, from the beginning of 'After the Final Rose' to that moment with the card, she was dealt the hardest hand out of everyone. That's a very difficult position to be in," Joey said of Lea's situation on the first night.
He added: "I thought she handled it with grace and it showed a lot about her character."
For Joey, his conversation with Lea about her difficult position made him realize he wanted to continue to get to know her, hence his decision to give her the first impression rose.
"I was very excited to get to know more about Lea. The one tough thing about that card and 'After the Final Rose' is that that was a lot of what our conversation was about," Joey explained.
He told BI that he wanted to convey a lot by giving Lea the first impression rose, namely that he was impressed with how she handled the tough situation.
"It's shown a lot about who you are, and this rose means I really want to get to know who you are as a person moving forward," he said.
New episodes of season 28 of "The Bachelor" premiere Mondays. You can watch a sneak peek at Joey's season below.