Rachel and Gabby Got to Personally Make Up the Rules for Their Joint 'Bachelorette' Season

If you heard all of America collectively screaming on a random night in March, it was because both Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia were announced as the leads for season 19 of The Bachelorette! Yep, for the first time in Bachelor franchise history, the upcoming Bachelorette season will have two leads at one time. Keeping things fresh, huh, ABC? Not sure about you, but I personally cannot wait for approximately 10 to 12 episodes of Gabby and Rachel’s unmatched queen energy.

The new season is set to air July 11, but we already know a handful of intel about it. Here’s what you need to know.

Gabby and Rachel are having a *joint* season.

To be abundantly clear, the two ladies will both be the leads for season 19—there will not be a split season, as far as we know right now. Details are TBD how their season will all shake out practically, but the questions abound. Like, will they date the same guys? How will one-on-one dates work? No official details have been announced about how the season will be structured yet, but we know one thing it *won’t* be, and that’s a situation that pits Gabby and Rachel against each other.

This tidbit comes courtesy of Bachelor franchise creator Mike Fleiss himself, who promised that the new Bachelorettes won’t be set against each other.

“I love Gabby and Rachel but there’s no way this doesn’t pit these two against each other,” a concerned fan wrote on Twitter. “Every guy is gonna be asked the same question: ‘Who do you like more?’”

In a quote tweet, Fleiss assured Bachelor Nation that won’t be the case, cryptically writing, “Not true! You’ll see….”

We’ll share more details about how Gabby and Rachel’s joint season will work when we hear ’em.

And their friendship is front and center.

When the smoke cleared on the raging garbage fire that was Clayton’s fantasy suite disaster parade, Gabby and Rachel’s friendship emerged from the ashes a la Daenerys Targaryen becoming the Mother of Dragons.

Now we’re finally getting some promo material from Gabby and Rachel’s joint outing as co-leads, which definitely seems to be fully committed to playing up their friendship as the key ’ship in the season (here for it, obviously). In a new promo ABC dropped Friday, the BFFs re-created a classic Mean Girls scene (well, ish, anyway—there’s obviously a Bach-themed spin on it).

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping,” Rachel says, channeling Regina George (except exuding too much of her natural niceness to really capture the full vibe). “For a husband,” Gabby replies from outside the passenger side.

It’s cringey in that dad-joke way pretty much all Bachelor/Bachelorette promos are, but seeing that Gabby and Rachels bond is still going strong is worth all the secondhand IG embarrassment.

There's a brand new format.

Ya know, considering that there are two whole Bachelorettes and all, this makes total sense. According to Nick Viall, this season will kinda function like Bachelor in Paradise, he explained on his podcast The Viall Files. Essentially, if one of the girls doesn't choose a guy, that guy now has the option to explore things with the other Bachelorette—if she so desires, of course.

“I’ve heard it’s going to be very different. And it’s going to have a Paradise feel to it,” said Nick. “It is on a cruise ship—part of it. I asked people because it sounds like the producers think it’s gonna be really interesting, but very different.” I. Am. Intrigued!

And Gabby and Rachel were the ones who decided how the season would work.

While we still don't know *exactly* how the whole co-Bachelorette thing is going to play out, we can all feel approximately 1000% more confident about the season's format and rules because Gabby and Rachel apparently decided how it would work themselves.

"When it was announced that they were gonna be the Bachelorettes back at After the Final Rose, [I thought], ‘Never done this before. How are they gonna be dating the guys? Who’s going on dates? How do they navigate this? This is all completely unprecedented,'" host Jesse Palmer explained during a recent interview with Us Weekly while promoting the new season. "Gabby and Rachel deserve a ton of credit because they really took control of this thing. They made up their own rules along the way, took charge."

Jesse added that, during their joint-journey for love, Gabby and Rachel were "faced with a lot of very difficult circumstances and situations" and were forced to have “"a lot of very difficult conversations [that] needed to be had" but that "it was their friendship and their support of each other that really helped them through it all — magically, somehow."

We already have a premiere date!

Gabby and Rachel’s season of The Bachelorette will premiere on July 11 on ABC! The producers were expeditious in getting that to the people. And the people thank them.

The people also thank the producers for a BREAK 🙌 🙌 🙌. There has been nonstop Bachelor franchise programming for roughly nine months with a weeklong break at most in between shows. What will we do with all of this newfound free time?!

Jesse Palmer is hosting.

Whilst many hoped that we’d get another season of the hosting duo that is Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe after the pair guided both Katie Thurston and Michelle Young through their journeys, Jesse announced last night that he will be the one accompanying Gabby and Rachel on theirs.

In case you consistently thought Jesse was just Clayton’s older, more attractive brother shepherding him through this process (same), we have the tea on the host right here:

And that’s all we know so far, besties! Be sure to check back on this story for updates as more info emerges.

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