‘Bachelor’ contestant Sharleen Joynt back in front of the camera as host of ‘Bachelor in Paradise Canada’

A decade or so ago, Canadian Sharleen Joynt was living in Germany working as an opera singer but feeling like her life needed a shakeup. So she applied to be a contestant on the TV dating show “The Bachelor.”

She didn’t get the guy — in fact, she voluntarily left the show after realizing that lead Juan Pablo Galavis wasn’t the man for her — but she gained something she still treasures today: a sense of community in what’s known as Bachelor Nation.

The Ottawa-born Joynt, who is now happily married to a man she didn’t meet on a reality show, went on to make part of her living as a “Bachelor” recapper, a podcaster and now host of “Bachelor in Paradise Canada,” which debuts its second season on Citytv Monday.

“When I first went on the show, it was more on a lark than anything,” the 30-something Joynt said in a phone interview. “Now it might be more in the interest of Instagram and maybe pivoting your career. But when I went on, Instagram wasn’t even a thing yet … I just wanted something to shake up my life and just do something different. You know, YOLO, FOMO, all the things.”

That season of “The Bachelor,” which aired in 2014, was rather infamous: there were blow-ups between Galavis and two of his contestants, Andi Dorfman and Clare Crawley (who both went on to lead seasons of “The Bachelorette”), and Galavis became one of the franchise’s most unpopular Bachelors.

But Joynt became a fan favourite for exhibiting class, poise and intelligence amid the reality TV shenanigans.

“To go on TV and really not expect anything out of it more than just an experience, which is how I felt, and then to have even that resonate so strongly with so many people, it’s really, really powerful,” she said.

“I was no one but myself in that process and to have people be like, ‘I relate to her. I see myself in her’ and like, wow, that’s cool, let’s be friends,” Joynt laughed.

The experience also helped her find her voice, she said.

She has put that voice to use since then in a number of ways. She’s still a singer, for one thing. (Her Citytv bio says she got her professional start at age 16 in a National Arts Centre production of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that featured legendary thespian Christopher Plummer as the narrator.)

She spent seven years recapping “Bachelor” shows for Flare magazine and started her popular podcast “Dear Shandy” in 2020, which she hosts with her husband, Andy Levine. (By the way, their 2017 wedding was covered by Us Weekly and People magazine, and the guest list included Dorfman, former Bachelors Nick Viall and Chris Soules, and a few other “Bachelor” alum.)

So Joynt said hosting “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” “feels like an exciting but somehow natural stop on my Bachelor Nation journey.”

A refresher for those who don’t know their “Bachelor” from their “Love Is Blind”: “The Bachelor” — which Joynt calls “the OG reality dating juggernaut” — features one man “dating” 30 or so women to find a fiancée. It debuted in 2002.

Spinoff “The Bachelorette,” same deal but with a female lead, bowed in 2003. “Bachelor in Paradise,” which has past contestants from both shows mingle at a beach resort in Mexico, debuted in 2014 and tends to be the most popular among fans of all three shows.

The Canadian version differs in that it’s filmed in Canada, and its cast includes both Canadian and American “Bachelor” alumni as well as fan contestants.

While Joynt didn’t recap the first season of “Paradise Canada,” which aired in 2021, she watched and said it was fantastic.

As host of Season 2, “it was pretty cool to get to be more so on the other side of things. It’s sort of like me and Kevin Wendt, the bartender (and a former contestant himself), fall into this category somewhere in between being really on the other side and being a contestant. You’re not a contestant, but you’re also not in the control room making things happen either.”

But it’s “less anxiety-inducing to be a host than a contestant because, you know, you’re in control of what you’re saying and what should air. As a contestant, you’re just never really sure how things are going to shake out for you.”

Wendt got more of a ringside seat to what happened during shooting at a secret Ontario location since he was with contestants throughout the night making them drinks and lending an ear.

“I would often hear about goings-on, like, the next morning or the next day,” Joynt said. “I’d be like, ‘What? That happened?’ So I was a little late to learn the news, but it was always very exciting.

“I mean, this season is really exciting,” she added. “Even during filming, I would tell my husband — he was with me during filming — I’d run back and be like, ‘Oh my God, you’ll never believe what happened.’ We already knew even during filming that it would be a great season.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Culture section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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