9-1-1 star Jennifer Love Hewitt is the mastermind behind the upcoming episode set at the Bachelor Mansion, which makes Us love her even more.
“The whole crossover episode came about because Jennifer Love Hewitt called me after she went to one of the finales of The Bachelor,” 9-1-1 showrunner Tim Minear told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Saturday, March 30. “She’s a huge fan of The Bachelor and she said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if the 118 responded to a call at the Bachelor mansion?’”
9-1-1, a procedural drama about emergency responders, will answer a call from The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer in the Thursday, April 4, episode. According to the official promo, one of the show contestants superglued herself to the driveway in front of the house. Bachelor Joey Graziadei plays himself in the scene, looking concerned after Palmer, 45, calls the paramedics.
In the teaser, Maddie (Hewitt) and Josh (Bryan Safi) were the 9-1-1 operators who received the call. After hanging up the phone and dispatching aid, they appropriately fangirled with one another.
According to Minear, he reached out to ABC — the network of both 9-1-1 and The Bachelor — to pitch Hewitt’s concept. (Hewitt, 45, is a big fan of the franchise and notably attended the Golden Bachelor “After the Final Rose” special in December 2023.)
“I reached out to ABC and they reached out to the Bachelor people and we got onto a Zoom,” Minear, 60, recalled to EW. “We just started talking about what the possibilities were. The Bachelor people were unbelievably supportive and helpful. They volunteered to show us the ropes about how they make the show and then when we shot it.”
He continued, “We actually brought in the Bachelor crew to shoot the first part of that case, so that it really was The Bachelor. And then we go into 9-1-1 world when they have to call 9-1-1. So that’s how it came about. It just seemed like a great idea.”
While both Palmer and Graziadei, 28, will join the 9-1-1 crew, the rest of the contestants will be played by actors. In real life, Graziadei’s season finished airing on Monday, March 25, with his engagement to Kelsey Anderson.
“With Kelsey … you go back to the last time she really started expressing things, almost back to Montreal,” Graziadei exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month of realizing Anderson, 25, was The One. “We were going a lot of off feelings, but there wasn’t really words being exchanged, so I did hold it in for a while. We both agree [that] when she was falling in Montreal, I was falling too. … I never said it to her because I wanted to be intentional with my words.”
9-1-1 airs on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.