Kaitlyn Bristowe And Britt Nilsson Both Picked As ‘The Bachelorette’ Contestants For 2015

Kaitlyn Bristowe and Britt Nilsson will both be The Bachelorette in 2015, with ABC announcing an unprecedented season featuring two Bachelorettes.

Bristowe and Nilsson were named on Monday after the conclusion of The Bachelor.

The decision for the 2015 Bachelorette contestant was not easy, insiders noted, as there was no frontrunner among this year’s group of potential contestants.

“Casting ‘The Bachelorette’ is just harder than ‘The Bachelor’,” a source told E! News. “And this season, the response to the women was pretty mixed.”

With no clear candidate, the show’s producers decided to go with both, said host Chris Harrison.

“Heated debates going on behind the scenes with our staff and producers,” Harrison said, adding, “so we thought why make a decision. This is what Bachelorette nation wants, so here we go.”

Even before the official Bachelorette 2015 contestants were announced, inside sources at ABC announced that there would be some changes. E! News reported that producers planned to “shake things up” with a season that would take the show away from its traditional format a bit.

“We are making some cool changes without changing too much,” says one insider.

The changes may be coming in response to declining ratings. The most recent season of The Bachelorette featuring Andi Dorfman was the lowest in terms of ratings.

Producers have already found good results with the just-ended season of The Bachelor, trying out some new approaches like an episode featuring Jimmy Kimmel.

“Mike Fleiss sort of rallied everybody together, including myself,” said host Chris Harrison, “and reminded us that if we want to keep doing this, we’ve got to be better. We have to produce better, we have to host better, and we have to create better… I think the show had become really formulaic. This season [of ‘The Bachelor’], we still follow the general recipe that’s been so good and made the good secret sauce for 13 years, but we have been able to loosen the reins on everything.”

While Kaitlyn Bristowe and Britt Nilsson were already seen as the frontrunners to become the next Bachelorette, there were other names in consideration. Andi Dorfman was briefly considered a candidate after her split with Josh Murray, though insiders quickly discounted the chances that she would come back for a second go-round.

Others believed that Jade Roper, the controversial contestant who was eliminated by Chris Soules after admitting she had appeared in Playboy, was a potential candidate. Hollywood Life thought her notoriety could actually play into her favor.

“What more does ABC want from a ‘Bachelorette’? Sure, she’s got a past: she posed for Playboy years ago. But who doesn’t have a past? I’m not saying that everyone poses nude, but let’s think about it: some of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood have done Playboy or Maxim or some sort of naked spread. From Madonna and Farrah Fawcett to Drew Barrymore and Cindy Crawford.”

With Kaitlyn Bristowe and Britt Nilsson both picked as The Bachelorette for 2015, the work will get started right away. Insiders say filming for the show will start the day after the official announcement.

[Image via ABC]