Wallabies star Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins to star in The Bachelor for sixth season
Network Ten has confirmed rumours that former Wallabies star Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins will star in the sixth season of The Bachelor.
The decision to catapult a high-profile person into the role comes after the runaway success of Sophie Monk’s season of The Bachelorette last year.
The next season of The Bachelor is ‘coming soon’, according to Ten
Monk’s season was a ratings winner, gathering more viewers than any previous season of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, and CEO of Ten Paul Anderson has previously flagged the network would be shaking up the formula as a result.
At the Screen Forever conference in November, Anderson told Mumbrella that Monk had taught the network a lesson on who to cast, and the learnings needed to be applied in order to move on from simply having “head-boy types” fronting the program.
“At the end of the day I think what we’ve proved over the past couple of years is that it’s all about the casting of that main role, and we’ve learnt some lessons and Sophie Monk I think was a good lesson for all of us, in terms of actually, you know – one, having someone in that role that is real, if not, slightly unusual. And I think without getting in too much trouble from my programming team, there needs to be some real colour and variation in the shows – picking the nice Bachelor, the ex head-boy is not going to sort of drive those shows into the future,” he said.
The finale of Monk’s season pulled 1.640m metro viewers and 2.204m nationally, after debuting with an audience of 951,000 metro viewers.
By comparison, Georgia Love’s season of The Bachelorette in 2016 attracted 655,000 metro viewers for its premiere and concluded with an audience of 790,000, which climbed to 972,000 for the final moments and the winner reveal.
The most recent iteration of The Bachelor featured Love’s second-placed ‘Matty J’, who had 846,000 metro viewers at the start and 1.116m for the final.
Ten, however, said Cummins was joining the cast in the starring role because he is “physically striking, successful and smart” and has a “distinctive sense of humour” whose “distinctive one-liners have made him a hero, both on and off the field”.
Cummins boasts a 15-match Rugby test career with the Australian Wallabies and also played a season with the Australian Sevens. He has a Commonwealth Games silver medal and has played with the Western Force and in Japan.
Cummins’ media career has also accelerated of late as he takes a break from the game, with two books already written and a third in the works. He’s appeared in various advertisements and has recently been signed by Netflix to co-host season three of Ultimate Beastmaster.
“I’m really looking forward to throwing everything at this opportunity to finding the one,” Cummins said.
“The past 10 or so years has been on the road playing rugby or working on my projects, so I’m very excited to be part of a show that is centred around love and good times.”
Network Ten executive producer of The Bachelor Australia, Hilary Innes, said: “We are delighted that Nick has agreed to be Australia’s next Bachelor. He will bring a refreshing, honest and cheeky energy to season six. On top of all his incredible achievements, he is both loveable and surprising. I know he will be a phenomenal Bachelor.”
Before Cummins’ season of The Bachelor hits screens, The Bachelor in Paradise, featuring cast members from previous local and international iterations on the show will screen on Ten, starting on March 25.
With that hair and moustache I reckon this us the same season of The Bacelor that won the ratings in 1973
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This will be a car crash and will damage the brand. Just should have set Sophie Monk up with Nick.
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