After a snow storm resulted in the cancellation of Tyler Cameron’s plans to speak in Syracuse last week, “The Bachelorette” star spoke at a rescheduled event last night.

On Saturday, Feb. 15th, Orange After Dark hosted an event titled “An Evening with Tyler Cameron.” Cameron, a former contestant on season 15 of the ABC program “The Bachelorette,” came to speak to Syracuse University students in Goldstein Auditorium.

Prior to starring on “The Bachelorette,” Cameron attended Wake Forest University, where he was the backup quarterback for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons football team. Cameron then went on to earn a master’s in business administration from Florida Atlantic University, close to his hometown of Jupiter, Florida.

Currently, Cameron models and is signed to Soul Artist Management in New York and Next Management in Miami. Cameron also co-runs the non-profit organization ABC Food Tours with his friend and former football player Matt James. The organization’s goal is to take students from underserved elementary schools out to restaurants in their neighborhoods.

The Orange After Dark staff wanted to invite Cameron to come to speak at the university after seeing a promo for events he was doing at Northeastern University, according to assistant director of student activities Lorena Silva.

“We knew there would be interest from Syracuse students to attend the event, and we were excited to explore bringing our first guest speaker to campus,” Silva said, “Prior to this event, Orange After Dark has only brought comedians, hypnotists and magicians to campus, so we are excited to add ‘guest speakers’ to that list.”

On the night of the event, girls flooded the auditorium filled with excitement. The moment Cameron walked onto the stage the audience erupted into joyful screams.

Cameron was introduced by moderator and broadcast and digital journalism major Kayla Miller. Miller immediately asked Cameron about how he was adjusting to the Syracuse weather. Cameron referenced a TikTok he had made only 12 hours earlier where he asked his Alexa about the weather in Syracuse, and she informed him that it was -4 degrees Fahrenheit. As a Floridian, Cameron was not used to this climate.

As the interview progressed, Cameron got the opportunity to discuss his football career “I miss football a little bit, but what I miss the most are my teammates,” he said. As a former player and fan, however, he was ecstatic about having the opportunity to attend this year’s Super Bowl in Miami.

SU student Kayla Miller moderated the event. After his interview with Miller, Tyler Cameron responded to questions submitted by audience members. Corey Henry | Photo Editor

Later, Miller asked Cameron about his experience on “The Bachelorette.” Cameron stated that his path to being on the show was actually a funny story.

“I was trying to play professional football. I got hurt, and I basically moved back home to my mom’s place. I was a broke jock at this point. I was finishing up my MBA, and in between studying I was taking a break, and I saw something for ‘The Bachelorette.’ So, I wrote funny responses to all the questions and tried to put up the biggest tool picture,” Cameron stated.

From there, Cameron said he was contacted by ABC producers who requested some more photos and information from him. Cameron procrastinated on doing this until eventually the producers offered to just Skype him. Since he thought that was easy enough, he went with that, and they decided to cast him.

Cameron described his start on the show as rough because his dad was sick at the time. It was his dad, however, who pushed him to try his luck on the show.

“So, I just went for it and I did it,” Cameron said, “I struggled even when I was on the show early on. I was super shy, like the first week and a half I didn’t really talk to anybody. I didn’t talk to Hannah. The first night I didn’t even talk to her.”

Hannah Brown was that season’s bachelorette who sent Cameron home in the last episode of the season, ultimately choosing contestant Jed Wyatt.

Cameron also discussed projects he is currently working on. One of these projects is as a host for a lifestyle television show called Barkitecture, where he builds dog houses for pets of different celebrities.

“I got to hang out with a bunch of dogs and no drama,” Cameron said when describing the project.

The new show will be available on the streaming platform Quibi sometime in the near future.

Published on February 16, 2020 at 2:46 pm