Did Raleigh ‘Bachelorette’ contestant come to NC for hometown date? Here’s what to know

After jet-setting to different cities for goofy group dates and over-the-top individual dates, it’s officially time for hometown dates on ABC’s “The Bachelorette.”

This is when 26-year-old Jenn Tran goes home with four of her suitors to meet their families, friends and get a feel for what it might be like if marriage is in their future.

Raleigh’s Marcus Shoberg is one of the four men getting a coveted hometown date.

Spoiler alert: He didn’t bring Tran back to the Tar Heel State.

After a solo date in Seattle, he and Tran didn’t travel very far to meet his loved ones. They were actually less than an hour away.

Back in April, television blogger Steve Carbon (better known as Reality Steve) posted photos on X of Tran and Shoberg at Titlow Beach in Tacoma, Washington.

Though Shoberg lives in Raleigh now, he has connections to the Tacoma area. He was stationed at Fort Lewis, an Army base south of Tacoma, according to his Linkedin. And he studied at the University of Washington, his Linkedin says.

In a video preview of the episode, Shoberg is pictured at a pebbly area near water and is seen talking to someone with a suspension bridge just off in the distance. In other words, neither locale looked like Raleigh with both offering Northwest US scenery.

While he also has connections to Minnesota, there were no reports of filming in the area. According to The Duluth News Tribune, his mother lives in Carlton, MN, and he attended school there.

The other three taking Jenn on a hometown date are Jeremy Simon, Jonathon Johnson and Devin Strader.

In last week’s episode, Shoberg and Tran had a “Wicked”-themed one-on-one date in Seattle, and the military veteran secured a rose from the 26-year-old Bachelorette following an emotional conversation about his childhood.

“I do not come from a perfect family — far from it,” he told Jenn. “My sister, when we were young, when we were kids, we were kind of born into, like, a pretty rough situation. We had parents who couldn’t like really take care of us … They, like, brought us to daycare one day and just, like, never came back for us.

“I had to, like, take on the role of looking after my sister. We lived in a foster home together. Families would like try us on for size and there was a lot of times where I thought that I was going to, like, have a mom and dad and they would change their mind and then, like, me and my sister would end up back at, you know, a foster home.”

ABC declined to disclose specific locations ahead of the new episode, but the military veteran did, in fact, take Tran to meet his loved ones on the West Coast.

How to watch “The Bachelorette”

You can watch “The Bachelorette” every Monday at 8 p.m. on ABC and on Hulu the day following their premieres.

This story was originally published August 19, 2024 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Did Raleigh ‘Bachelorette’ contestant come to NC for hometown date? Here’s what to know."

Chyna Blackmon

The Charlotte Observer

Chyna Blackmon was a service journalism reporter for The Charlotte Observer. A native of the Carolinas, she grew up in Columbia, SC, and graduated from Queens University of Charlotte. She’s also worked in local television news in Charlotte, NC, and Richmond, VA. Support my work with a digital subscription