Former Miss SC and a rival to appear on next season of ‘The Bachelor’

Miss South Carolina will take over the upcoming season of ABC’s “The Bachelor” with a former winner of the pageant and a former contestant competing for the love of “Bachelorette” star Zach Shallcross.

The past pageant winner is Davia Bunch, 26, who lives in Charleston but is a native of Spartanburg. She won the title of Miss South Carolina in 2018 and is now a digital marketing manager.

The other contestant is Cat Wong, who is used to competing against Bunch. Wong not only has participated in the Miss South Carolina pageant before, but the pair went head to head in the same 2018 contest, which Bunch ultimately won.

Cat Wong: Former Miss South Carolina contestant

Wong, 27, participated in Miss South Carolina while she was in college at the University of South Carolina. However, Wong is not actually from the Palmetto State. She grew up in New York.

“Bachelor” fans were first introduced to Wong Tuesday evening during the Season 19 finale of “The Bachelorette.” After Shallcross was announced as the next Bachelor, he got the chance to meet five of the women on his upcoming season, Wong among them.

“I came all the way from New York just to meet you, and much like living in New York City, dating me is not intended for the weak, so if you can make it here” — motioning to her heart — “you can make it anywhere,” Wong, a professional dancer, said when she met Shallcross.

Shallcross noted that Wong didn’t “seem nervous at all.”

“Well, I’m a natural,” she responded. “I’ll see you at the mansion. All right, okay, love ya!”

Davia Bunch: University of South Carolina alum and 2018 Miss SC winner

Earlier in the day, the nation’s expert on spoiling “The Bachelor” franchise, a blogger known as Reality Steve, reported that Bunch would also be one of the women vying for Shallcross’ heart.

Bunch graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2020 and filed a class-action lawsuit in May of that year against the school on behalf of all students in an attempt to force the school to refund tuition and other academic fees in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic’s disruptions of traditional learning.

Bunch’s complaint said that “although closing campus and transitioning to online classes may have been prudent,” it impacted students by taking away “the benefits of in-person instruction, access to campus facilities, student activities, and other benefits and services.”

The lawsuit has since languished and school has not issued any tuition refunds for students who were in school when the pandemic began.

Bunch’s Miss South Carolina platform was “Be the match, become the cure” to raise awareness about donating bone marrow. The platform was tied to her mother, who died of leukemia in 2013. Bone marrow transplants are a common treatment for the illness.

“For me, I don’t think my platform was picked. I think it was chosen for me long ago,” she said after winning the 2018 pageant. “When I was 18 I decided to join the bone marrow registry not because I wanted to for a platform, but because it was in my heart to do that, and I wanted to have an opportunity to save someone’s life where my mother didn’t have that chance.”

Shallcross, the star of the next season of the long-running show, is a 26-year-old tech executive from Austin, Texas. He was eliminated during week 10 of Season 19 of “The Bachelorette” by star Rachel Recchia following their “Fantasy Suite” date.

Pageant queens have history on ‘The Bachelor’

This isn’t the first time two pageant queens who previously competed against one another have appeared on the same season of “The Bachelor.”

Season 23 of the reality television dating show featured Hannah Brown, the 2018 Miss Alabama, and Caelynn Miller-Keyes, the 2018 Miss North Carolina, who fought for the attention of Bachelor Colton Underwood in 2019. The past relationship between Brown and Miller-Keyes, who competed against each other for the title of Miss USA (neither won), was a source of tension for much of that season of the show. Brown later went on to be star of “The Bachelorette” that same year.

“(Wong) attended U of South Carolina at same time Davia did, and competed against her for Miss South Carolina in 2018,” Reality Steve said in a tweet on Tuesday. “You can bet your a** that will be brought up this season.”

ABC has not released much of the cast list beyond the five women Shallcross met Tuesday night, leaving room for more South Carolinians to join the fray. The last time a “South Carolinian” appeared on the show was in 2021 on Michelle Young’s season of “The Bachelorette.” Alec Thompson, of North Charleston (though he grew up in Forest, Virgnia), was given almost no airtime and we heard just one line from him before he was cut at the end of the second episode.

“You seem like an amazing girl and the total package. And I just can’t wait to learn more about you and get this thing on track,” Thompson told Young when he walked out of the limo during his first week on the show.

The full cast list is likely to be trickled out as the premiere of season 27 of “The Bachelor” gets closer. The first episode will air January 23, 2023.