Tyler Cameron recalls the ‘pressure’ to look ‘perfect’ while filming ’The Bachelorette’: ‘I learned quickly that’s not a healthy way to be’

Few reality stars shine beyond their 15 minutes of fame like Tyler Cameron has.

Six years after appearing on Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette, the Florida native says that “love, health and mentorship” have become the driving forces in his life.

“I want to put positive things out there, to try and lead people in the right way,” Cameron, 30, tells Yahoo Life. “I'm just a simple home boy. I love being home and I love my community.”

The former NFL player, who dreams of “becoming a high school football coach,” is working as a contractor and restaurateur alongside his father and two brothers in Jupiter, Fla. It’s there, the now-single Cameron says, that he hopes to build a life with someone and settle down. But he’s taking care of himself first, noting, “I gotta get to where I need to be in life before I do any of that.”

Fans got to know Cameron on season 15 of The Bachelorette, which aired in 2019, during which he was praised for making several statements around consent after supporting Brown’s decision to wait before having sex with him during an overnight date. He later defended her when contestant Luke Parker made sexist comments about her having sex with contestant Peter Wieber while on the show.

Ultimately, Cameron came in second place in the finale, behind winner Jed Wyatt; Brown later broke up with him when it was alleged that he was in a relationship with another woman prior and during filming (an accusation Wyatt denies). Brown and Cameron had a short-lived relationship after that, which ended with them just being friends. He later had short romances with women including Gigi Hadid and Kristin Cavallari.

Looking back at his time on the show, Cameron recalls the pressure he felt to "be perfect" after instant fame — a mindset, he says, that stemmed from his early days as a model, which began after his football career was derailed due to an injury.

“I got into the modeling world and the TV world, where you have to uphold an image,” he explains of the contentious relationship with his body. “I started taking fitness more seriously. I like to lift heavy weights, which makes me big and strong, but doesn't always make me look the best for modeling. Down the road, I learned I’m not going to be the skinny little model that everyone else was. I'm just gonna be who I am, and I was happier doing that rather than trying to fit into something I'm not.”

Cameron was still new to modeling when he got on The Bachelorette, after losing 30 pounds post-football. As he explains, the pressure of maintaining a model-like physique became burdensome.

“There was pressure when I got on the show to be this perfect, you know, whatever. It took time to grow out of that,” he says. “When you’re first getting into all the fame and all the craziness that comes with being on a TV show, you’re like, Oh, I gotta be everything everyone wants me to be. I learned quickly that’s not a healthy way to live.”

His relationship with fitness and wellness is different now, he stresses.

"When you stop working out for the world and start working out for yourself, that’s when you start doing it for more healthy causes," says Cameron. “I need to do things that are gonna take care of my body. It's about finding ways to take care of yourself. I gotta put more cardio and things into my workouts now because I have heart issues in my family, so I want to make sure that's all good."

That includes pickleball, which has become his latest obsession. On Aug. 25, Cameron joined influencer David Dobrik at his house in Los Angeles for a friendly celebrity pickleball tournament that saw Cameron, Tessa Brooks, Olivia Culpo, Brooks Nadar and many more playing the game to raise money for charity.

Tournament sponsor Celsius donated to all participating teams’ charities, including Cameron's the Andrea Cameron Foundation, named after his mother who died of a brain aneurysm in Feb. 2020. The foundation gives financial aid to college students in the Jupiter community and helps to build physical spaces for other local charities, including Hannah's Home.

“There were no goodbyes, and we were having a hard time finding light in a dark situation," he says of the grief he felt after losing his mom. “My dad and I came up with the idea [for the foundation] as a way to give back, and it’s been incredible.”

With loss and growth comes maturity, Cameron points out. It's also brought new wisdom on life and overall health, which he hopes to impart on younger generations.

“My life is a lot different than it was three years ago. I’m in a great place and I’m doing amazing things, but it’s not the crazy hype that it was before,” he says. “In this world, you’re gonna get a crazy rush and then it’s all gonna mellow out. It’s learning to find that balance."

Finally, he advises, "Don’t get too low with the lows, don’t get too high with the highs. You gotta be right in the middle. I try to stay that way now.”