Marina Del Rey Man Seeks Love On 'The Bachelorette'

MARINA DEL REY, CA — "The Bachelorette" begins its 13th season at 9 p.m. Monday evening, with seven men from the Los Angeles area, including Marina Del Rey, among the 31 bachelors courting Rachel Lindsay, the first African-American in the lead role on an ABC dating series.

Lindsay is a 31-year-old attorney from Dallas who finished third in the 2017 season of "The Bachelor."

Robert Mills, ABC's senior vice president, alternative series, specials and late night, described Lindsay as "an accomplished, confident and beautiful woman who knows what she wants in life," when the network announced on Feb. 13 she would be the next bachelorette.

The Los Angeles area bachelors are:

• Eric Bigger, Jr., a 29-year-old personal trainer from Los Angeles who considers himself a "neat freak," calls "Blue Chips," "Bad Boys" and "The Equalizer" his three favorite movies, and said "As a Man Thinketh," published in 1903, is his favorite book because of its "simple format for being human and living life."
• Blake Elarbee, a 31-year-old who lives in Marina del Rey and describes himself as an aspiring drummer.
  • Elarbee said he prefers his ideal mate to be "fit and curvy, but I'm a sucker for a nice butt and a beautiful smile," considers getting engaged "to a crazy girl" the most outrageous thing he did, and he hates it when his date "tells me about her cats."

• DeMario Jackson, a 30-year-old executive recruiter from Century City. He said his ideal mate's personality like would be "Outgoing, people person, funny, crazy, calm, cool, loud, funny, geeky but cool like The Fonz," referring to the nickname of the character played by Henry Winkler on the 1974- 84 ABC comedy "Happy Days."
• Jamey Kocan, a 32-year-old sales account executive from Santa Monica who said the person he admires most is businessman Elon Musk because he is a "different thinker" and innovator and his ideal mate looks like a model.
• Kyle Sherwood is a 26-year-old marketing consultant from Los Angeles who called Will Smith his favorite actor.
  • "I wanted to be as cool and smart as him growing up," Sherwood said. "Still do. Also, he just seems perpetually positive. So much respect for that."

• Dean Unglert is a 26-year-old startup recruiter who lives in Venice and described his ultimate date as going "anywhere that's fun where we can laugh and do new things, pushing the limits of what both of us are comfortable with."
• Lucas Yancey is a 30-year-old Santa Monica resident whose occupation was given as "whaboom," which the urban dictionary defines as a shout of male triumph, used in the bedroom, but most likely during an intense session of video games.

Yancey was wearing a T-shirt with the word and a caricature of himself when he got out of a limousine to meet Lindsay and let out the shout when he met her.

Monday's episode includes Lindsay discussing her hopes and dreams for the season with seven of her fellow contestants from the 2017 season of The Bachelor" — Whitney Fransway, Raven Gates, Jasmine Goode, Astrid Loch, Corinne Olympios, Kristina Schulman and Alexis Waters.

The field of bachelors will be reduced to 23 by the end of the episode.

The season will include husband and wife actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis judging the men's performances in what is described as a "husband material obstacle course" and NBA career scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar putting 10 of the men through several basketball drills before revealing that they will need to play in front of a huge crowd.

All 12 previous seasons of "The Bachelor" have ended with the man proposing, with three marriages resulting.

— City News Service, photo courtesy of ABC