The new Bachelor, 29, appeared on Good Morning America on Monday, January 4, to promote the season 25 premiere of the ABC reality dating series. During the interview, he revealed that he had an accident in the kitchen of his New York City apartment while getting ready for his big day.

“I’m trying to stay in shape, I’m making a smoothie, I’m trying to clean my blender,” he told GMA’s T.J. Holmes after holding up his bandaged finger to the camera. “It might’ve been samurai swords that were the blenders ‘cause I didn’t even feel [it]. I touched the blade and I’m dripping blood everywhere.”

With a laugh, the journalist, 43, assured viewers that James was “all right,” adding, “It’s a new season of The Bachelor. You might be a little nervous this morning.”

Throughout the interview, Holmes tried to get the real estate broker to spoil — or at least tease — the ending of his season, but James refused to budge.

“You in love, my man?” the TV host asked, to which North Carolina native quickly replied, “Y’all are putting me on blast already!”

ABC announced in June 2020 that James would lead the 25th season of The Bachelor, making him the franchise’s first Black male lead. (Rachel Lindsay became the first Black Bachelorette in 2017.)

“It’s an honor,” he said on GMA at the time. “I’m just going to lean into myself and how my mom raised me, and hopefully when people invite me into their homes on Monday nights, they’re going to see that I’m not much different from them and they see that diverse love stories are beautiful.”

The Wake Forest University graduate — who is best friends with former Bachelorette Hannah Brown’s runner-up, Tyler Cameron, and was originally set to compete on Clare Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette this year — began filming his run as the Bachelor in September at the Nemacolin Resort in Farmington, Pennsylvania. Production wrapped in November.

Ahead of Monday’s premiere, Chris Harrison exclusively told Us Weekly that James “had a bit of a rude awakening” on set. However, the host, 49, promised that the reality star had “an amazing journey … not just as the Bachelor but also as this man who realizes, ‘Wow, OK, this is love and this is what it means and I’m really here to find this.’”

The Bachelor season 25 premieres on ABC Monday, January 4, at 8 p.m. ET.

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Nicholas Hautman