Honestly, every single Bachelor alum needs to chill out. This morning, I was in the middle of writing an article about how Mike Johnson is hanging out with Demi Lovato, when someone sent me a brand new story about how Nick Viall and Rachel Bilson might be a thing. It’s a tough time when I have to interrupt thinking about Bachelor Nation’s next power couple to think about Bachelor Nation’s next next power couple. Seriously, it’s too much.
Out of all the Bachelor guys who have been linked to more famous women, Nick might make the most sense. After his appearance on four different Bachelor shows, he’s one of the best-known people in the franchise, and he’s always had kind of a celeb energy. He even dated January Jones, way back when Tyler Cameron was just a twinkle in Gigi Hadid’s eye.
But in the year and a half since Nick and January split up, he’s mostly just been single. Enter: Rachel Bilson. In the past, she famously dated her The OC costar Adam Brody, and she was engaged to Hayden Christensen until approximately two years ago. Since then, she’s kept her personal life low-key, and we don’t really know anything about who she’s been seeing for the last couple of years.
Back in July, Rachel Bilson was a guest on Nick’s podcast The Viall Files, which wasn’t really suspicious. He often has pretty good guests, and their conversation didn’t suggest that they were dating. Rachel said that she was dating, but hadn’t met anyone that she would introduce to her daughter. She said that “It would have to be a very serious relationship,” and that it’s a major red flag for her if a guy doesn’t seem enthusiastic about her daughter.
Her podcast appearance itself didn’t raise a lot of questions, but Nick’s Instagram post about the episode definitely made me raise an eyebrow.
How dare he tease us with a caption about fantasy suites?! This is unacceptable! But while Nick’s caption was funny, Rachel’s comment on the post sent me into a full-blown stress spiral.
Oh. My. God. The thing is, this could purely be two friends joking around, or it could be public foreplay. The flirty comments worked for Mike and Demi! While this happened a couple months ago, these two have still been interacting on Instagram more recently. Nick comments on a lot of her photos, and he commented on her most recent pic this weekend.
Most of Nick’s comments 0n Rachel’s photos are like this. It’s the kind of thing a middle school boy would say to his crush, and then she’s not sure if he hates her or wants to be her boyfriend. Honestly, this checks out for Nick Viall, because I feel like he exudes the emotional maturity of a middle school boy.
While these comments aren’t enough to assume that they’re officially dating or anything, I could definitely see it happening. This stuff would be kind of typical if they were seeing each other, but wanted to keep it low-key. Because of her appearance on his podcast, they don’t have to keep it a secret that they know each other, and now we all have to keep guessing about whether something more is going on.
So yeah, Nick Viall and Rachel Bilson may or may not be dating, and at this point we just don’t know. At this point, I’m already on the look out for the next next next Bachelor/celeb pairing, because it’s only a matter of time. Will Blake date a country music star? Will someone date Scheana from Vanderpump Rules? It’s a new world, and these are just the rules now.
Images: Shutterstock; nickviall (2), rachelbilson / Instagram
