Who Is Kelley Flanagan on 'The Bachelor'?

Potential spoilers for The Bachelor ahead. Delta pilot Peter Weber flew right into Hannah Brown's heart (yes, I made an aviation pun, sorry) during her season of The Bachelorette and ended up making it to the top four before being eliminated. As 2020's Bachelor (opens in new tab), his zen attitude and personality is probably going to mean we'll have some intense female contestants to bring some drama. One of the contestants who's already getting spoilery buzz as a potential frontrunner to the season is Kelley Flanagan, who—fun fact—actually met and totally got along with Weber before the show.

Talk about an advantage: She actually had the chance to, you know, have an organic conversation with him before those awkward intros on night one. And thus far she's proved to have staying power, so she'll be one to watch—at least for the first few episodes. So what do we know so far?

She's a tax attorney.

According to her LinkedIn (opens in new tab), she works at Chicago firm Flanagan Bilton LLC (opens in new tab). Like Hannahbama, she graduated from the University of Alabama (marketing) and got her law degree in Chicago. If my math is correct, judging by her graduation date, she's 27, so close in age to Weber. 

She met Peter before the show.

Oooo intriguing! (It's not like Stagecoach, though, if you watched Bachelor in Paradise—a.k.a. the almighty hookup-fest between former contestants.) This just seems like, according to spoilers, that Flanagan met Weber (opens in new tab) at a Malibu wedding in August, where they were both guests. They really hit it off, and she was apparently honest with him about appearing on his upcoming season.

We learn in the season premiere of Weber's season that it isn't just Flanagan who thought they hit it off. Weber tells her that he hasn't stopped thinking about her since they met—so, I mean, I'm glad she showed up, because presumably he's expecting to be engaged about ten weeks later?—and she says that the only reason she went on the show was because she believed they had been brought together for a reason. Which is a sweet, authentic, quite un-Bachelor way to meet someone, huh?

No word on whether anything romantic happened at the time, although if it had I guarantee you someone who have spoiled it already. What a stroke of luck, and also, imagine having Peter fricking Weber at the wedding you happen to be attending??

She's popular with him on the show.

So the first group date involved a bunch of the women donning flight suits while Weber dressed exactly like a pilot from Top Gun (pictures here (opens in new tab)—a bit on the nose, eh, producers?). The women had to deal with putting on life vests and climbing up slides and also apparently there was slime, I don't know. Pictures are here, but apparently Flanagan won the whole thing—meaning she must be athletic, right?? And her prize was that she got to fly with Weber on a one-on-one (pictures here (opens in new tab)). They hugged afterwards, and obviously she got her rose because she's also been on a recent group date:

Here's everything we know about Peter's contestants so far (opens in new tab).

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