Okay, so you may have noticed that there's a little bit of a Bachelorette spoiler in that headline above.
It's not the sort of thing we normally do, but this is news so big we want to shout it from the rooftops:
As The Hollywood Gossip reported last month, Katie Thurston has been chosen as the next Bachelorette.
That much is still true, but now, there's a new development that could forever alter the franchise as we know it.
According to a new report from Reality Steve, The Bachelor spoilers and The Bachelorette spoilers guru:
Michelle Young will also be the new Bachelorette!
Yes, for the first time, two contestants from the same season will be simultaneously announced as the next faces of the franchise.
(As we've been reporting for several weeks, Rachael Kirkconnell will get Matt James' final rose, not Michelle ... but hey, it sounds like everything will work out just fine in the end for Michelle!)
According to Steve, the big announcement will be made by guest host Emmanuel Acho during the After the Final Rose special.
"Katie will get her own full season of the Bachelorette that begins taping at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya in New Mexico in a few weeks," RS wrote in a blog post published on Wednesday, March 10.
"Michelle’s Bachelorette season will film sometime after BIP films (most likely all of July) and air later on in the fall," he added.
Wow. The shake-ups just keep coming this winter.
Of the two, Michelle is a more traditional candidate for the role in a sense, having made it all the way to the Matt's final two.
Katie is a bit of an eccentric choice:
Not only was she eliminated relatively early in the season, she also earned the nickname "Vibrator Girl" as a result of her decision to bring her favorite sex toy along on her first night in the mansion.
So how did we get here?
In other words, why the heck didn't producers just stick with tradition and cast Michelle in the first place?
Well, as you may already know, it wasn't personal. In fact, it was strictly professional - on her end.
Ms. Young has some important professional commitments that require her to film in the summer.
Steve reports:
"The reason is that Michelle did not want to leave her class again to start filming in a few weeks (meaning she’d miss most of the remainder of her school year), hence the reason she is getting her own season this summer when she’s out of school," Steve reports.
So there you have it.
In the run-up to the After the Final Rose special, you're sure to hear a lot of talk about a bombshell announcement.
But in this case, it seems that Reality Steve has once again beaten execs to the punch with The Bachelorette spoilers.
"That’s the 'twist' or 'curveball' you’ll see announced on the ATFR on Monday," he writes in his latest blog post.
Got 'em!
Anyway, the important thing here is that fans are in for more of Michelle Young, who might be the most beloved contestant in the history of the franchise.
And what's not to love?
She's a public school teacher, and she's from Minnesota, which means there's pretty much no chance that she'll let sudden fame go to her head.
After all, those negative-forty degree winters can be quite humbling.
Sadly, her season doesn't begin shooting until mid-summer, so it will likely be quite a while before we get to see Michelle on ABC again.
But when she does take the reins as the new Bachelorette, perhaps she'll be the star that a jittery Bachelor Nation can unify behind.
For once, we're on the same page with ABC execs, as we're also hoping she'll turn out to be just what this franchise needs.
As for Thurston (above), we wish her all the best too, of course. All love for the two leading ladies of The Bachelorette!