One woman, 20 men, all singles who would like to change this situation as soon as possible: the new “Bachelorette” season will soon start on RTL and there will be lots of flirting again. This time in Thailand. The focus is on Jennifer Saro, who took care of her little son behind the scenes after the spectacular dates. With the star she spoke about her expectations of the show and the special feature of being the first Bachelorette to be a single mom.

stern: Jennifer, you are the new Bachelorette. How did this come about? I was asked. But it wasn’t a matter of: I’ll be asked and tomorrow it’ll be me. We had many long talks, that was a long process.

How did those around you react to it, more excited or worried? Everyone was positive without exception! Well, there really wasn’t anyone who saw it in any negative way.

Have you followed the previous Bachelorettes and perhaps benefited from their experiences? When it was clear that I would actually do it, I started watching all the seasons. I didn’t finish everything, but I started! And then, of course, I looked at it: what did I like and what didn’t I like. What would I possibly do differently? But it wasn’t like I took an example from someone and said: That’s how I would do it too.

Did you get any advice from your family or friends along the way? No, not really, but a friend gave me a dating journal so I could write things down, and that came in handy. I used that a lot too.

You took your son with you to the shooting – that had never happened before. Were you able to organize that with RTL in advance, and was that time-consuming? It was new for everyone involved, so there wasn’t a ready-made template that we could follow. It was also a lot more risk – because: what if something happens to the little one? How do we handle the whole situation? There was a lot of planning behind it.

You took a friend with you who looked after the child when you went on dates, for example. Wasn’t that an advantage for you compared to the other Bachelorettes, because then you could of course gossip about the men with your girlfriend? In fact, we made sure that we didn’t do that. Because they just wanted me to be able to have the same experiences as the other Bachelorettes – as far as possible – and not let myself be influenced by any other opinions.

Before the shooting started, were you optimistic that you could find your dream man in such a format, or did you think that with cameras all around it might be even more difficult? No, I was very optimistic! I have also manifested that this will work! (laughs) Well, you can fall in love anywhere – and that’s exactly why I did it. If I hadn’t believed in it, I could have saved myself that too.

Did you have a kind of checklist so that you knew what you wanted to examine someone for? Appearance and stuff like that really wasn’t important to me. I wanted to fully immerse myself in it. Even if it wasn’t my type of man visually, I still wanted to get to know his background. You never know! That’s why I had no idea. And in character he should have humor, be honest – and have a loving side.

Do you think you have a good detector of whether someone is serious or just looking for the limelight and not the girlfriend? I wasn’t biased at all. Even if the key point for someone to get involved was being on TV, you can still fall in love! So I didn’t rule that out. But after a while, the better you get to know someone, you can then also assess: Okay, is it going in the direction where you could fall in love, or is it stagnating?

Do you have the feeling that the exotic environment made it easier or more difficult to get to know someone – because then it’s probably going to be a hard cut once you’re back in the familiar everyday environment? Well, you get to know the person on their own. The character traits. But of course you have to be aware that it is of course something different when everyday life and obligations are added. You just have to say: We’ll see if it works.

You were single for five years. Since it seems to have worked for you, why do you want a boyfriend now? It’s nice to share life with someone. I think everyone wants someone to share their successes and failures with. But I don’t need a man – that’s still the case. I know I’m fine on my own. That worked for five years and it would work for another five years without a man. A relationship is a nice add-on!

“The Bachelorette” can be seen on RTL on Wednesday, July 12 at 8:15 p.m. And now on RTL.