The Minnesotan competing on this season of "The Bachelor" pulled up in a red truck with a spruce tree in back — a nod to the Christmas tree farm where she grew up.
Daisy Kent, who is from Becker, Minn., introduced herself to tennis pro Joey Graziadei during Monday night's premiere. The 25-year-old, who now lives in San Diego, also told the ABC-TV reality show's audience the story of her profound hearing loss.
Kent has talked about losing her hearing — and then gaining it, via a cochlear implant — on TikTok, where she counted more than 44,000 followers at the show's start.
She began losing her hearing at 17, Kent said during the premiere, "and in the last few years it started getting really bad..." The experience was isolating, she told the San Diego CBS station last year. "When you're going through something like that, you do feel alone in ways," she said then, "because it's your way to communicate with people and express yourself."
Getting a cochlear implant, an electronic device used by people with severe hearing loss, "honestly completely changed my life," Kent said on "The Bachelor," helping her rediscover everyday sounds she'd lost.
Kent told the camera that she hadn't dated since the surgery and was nervous. Those nerves were amplified when she stepped inside the "Bachelor" mansion and saw the other 31 women: "Someone should have told me it's 'America's Next Top Model,'" she joked.
But then Kent got time alone with Graziadei beside a Christmas tree. "If you get in your head," she told him, "just remember to, like, be kind to yourself." The two kissed. Later, the tennis pro gave her a rose.
"Daisy is gorgeous..." Graziadei said. "She has this soft-spoken demeanor that pulls you in, that's captivating. And I'm drawn to her."
