The Transformation Of Tayshia Adams From 4 To 30 Years Old
Tayshia Adams has gone through quite the transformation over the years, growing from an adorable little girl into a confident, stunning woman. She's a California native who has traveled the world with reality television cameras following her every move, and she certainly seems to be living her best life at this point.
As Tayshia told ABC7, "I'm an Orange County girl." She was born in Orange, California and grew up in the area. Glamour said she has a close, large family that consists of her mom Rosario, her dad Desmond, brothers Desmond Jr. and Brice, as well as a sister, Dominique. As Mitu shared, Tayshia's mom is Mexican and her dad is Black, and Entertainment Tonight noted she identifies as biracial. Her bio for "The Bachelorette" detailed that Rosario and Desmond have been married for more than 30 years, setting an example Tayshia herself hopes to follow. She loves spending time with her family and she grew up attending church regularly.
So, how has her upbringing impacted who Tayshia has become? Here's a look at how this Bachelor Nation favorite has grown throughout her lifetime.
Inside Tayshia Adams' childhood of mixed cultures
As a child, Tayshia Adams spent a great deal of time with her mother's extended family in Mexico, noted Mitu. "I would go for months at a time, I would actually come back knowing how to speak just Spanish," Tayshia explained. While she grew up with regular exposure to her Mexican relatives, she has also acknowledged that the area of California where she lived was primarily white. "I am very used to being the minority," Tayshia said during an appearance on "The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever!"
In an Instagram post, Tayshia noted she "never knew any different" in terms of being a minority in her community and admitted she "never wanted to bring attention to something that would make people see me differently/ not as an equal." In fourth grade, however, "I had my first cognitive encounter with someone not wanting to associate with me based on the color of my skin," she wrote.
Tayshia experienced another race-related incident when she was in seventh grade, she relayed to Marie Claire. "This kid said he wouldn't sit in my desk because I sat there, and he was Purell-ing the desk." Tayshia recalled she "felt ashamed. I was embarrassed," and she did not say anything about it at the time. Throughout her childhood, she said her family didn't typically have difficult conversations about race, though. "Growing up it was a different time. I feel like cultural assimilation plays into it," she told Mitu.
Tayshia Adams' teen years contained some drama
Tayshia Adams shared on her podcast "Click Bait with Bachelor Nation" that she went to an all-girls high school and once played Marie Antoinette in a school production. "I had to own that thing. And I did it in front of many people, okay? And I had to put on this fake English accent. If I can do that, I can do anything else," she declared. She also admitted it was "the most embarrassing thing I'd ever done." She noted in another podcast episode, she had been "a very sheltered girl" who attended private schools her whole life.
After high school, Tayshia attended Concordia University Irvine and graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology medical science (per LinkedIn). Right after starting college, however, she went through a terrifying experience. As she shared on the "Click Bait" premiere, she was once run over by a truck. She revealed that during her first weekend staying at college, a simple Skittles run and a chat with a friend in a truck led to a fractured pelvis. "I had tire tracks on my legs for two weeks" and she had to re-learn how to walk. As scary as that was, Tayhsia was eventually able to laugh about it. "My family, to this day, is like, 'If anything like this were to happen, it would be to Tayshia and it would be because of candy,'" she quipped. She forged forward, though, refusing to let this setback derail her college experience.
A short-lived marriage left Tayshia Adams feeling lost
During college, Tayshia Adams started dating her first real boyfriend, Josh Bourelle (per "The Bachelor"). They were together for six years and ScreenRant noted they got married in February 2016. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last long. He filed for divorce in October 2017 and, during a chat with Nick Viall on his "The Viall Files" podcast, Tayshia noted that her ex-husband had been unfaithful. "I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, I felt very undesirable," Tayshia detailed.
After her divorce, Tayshia was very closed off to dating and she did not think she was likely to get married again. "I had lost myself to be quite honest, so how the heck am I going to start dating someone else?" she recalled. Tayshia told Marie Claire that she stayed with her parents after her divorce "because I didn't have anything that was mine." Although she was hesitant to date and look for love again, she found herself giving it a shot about a year after her divorce.
'The Bachelor' takes Tayshia Adams' life in a new direction
Tayshia Adams was cast to be a contestant on "The Bachelor" for Season 23 after her girlfriends nominated her (per Vulture). It was filmed during the fall of 2018, featuring Colton Underwood, and debuted in January 2019. Colton wrote in his book "The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV" that Tayshia was "one of the women who most intrigued me" and noted she was a "wild card among my favorites." She made it to the final three, but Colton was fully focused on pursuing Cassie Randolph at that stage. In his book, he admitted he "would've cut Tayshia" earlier, but he eliminated Caelynn Miller-Keyes instead because she was close to Cassie (via Cosmopolitan). He knew Cassie and Caelynn's friendship "had grown" and he thought if Caelynn went home, it might show Cassie how serious he was about her
After her elimination from "The Bachelor" aired, Tayshia opened up about the experience in an Instagram post. She wrote about the "magnitude of vulnerability and faith" the experience required and said she "wouldn't change it for the world." Tayshia then joined Season 6 of "Bachelor in Paradise" and ultimately fell for John Paul Jones. They split before "BIP" ended, but as Us Weekly shared, the two reunited off-camera and dated for a while before calling it quits again. It turned out, however, that Tayshia was not quite done with reality television yet.
Tayshia Adams finds love as 'The Bachelorette'
Clare Crawley was chosen as "The Bachelorette" for Season 16, although Tayshia Adams had been a contender (per Variety). After Clare fell for Dale Moss, however, Tayshia was brought in to take over. In the finale, contestant Zac Clark proposed and Tayshia accepted. She told Entertainment Tonight, "I'm the happiest I've been." She said she was living her best life, and she soon moved to New York where Zac was living. As she told People, however, she chose to keep her California home for the time-being. Tayshia and Zac have not begun wedding planning yet, but all signs suggest they are doing well. Tayshia also joined Kaitlyn Bristowe as co-host for Katie Thurston's season of "The Bachelorette," and Us Weekly detailed they will do it again for Michelle Young.
Tayshia worked as a phlebotomist before doing "The Bachelor," but she told Vulture she'd left that behind. "I don't know if I'll go back into medicine," she admitted. "As much as I love it and went to school for it, my passion has always been in real estate, development, interior design, and architecture," she explained. She has embraced the influencer life on social media and still does her "Click Bait" podcast. She previously said, "I think everything happens for a reason. I pray about everything that happens in my life, especially big decisions" and she believes if something's meant to be, it'll happen. After doing "The Bachelorette," it would appear that philosophy has served her well.