“Bachelor Mondays” were a two-year tradition with Newton native Juliana Pasquarosa and her older sister, Dominique. After work, Pasquarosa would bring a bottle of wine to her sister’s house, and they’d watch the show over pasta.

Little did she know, her sister signed her up for the show, in which an eligible bachelor dates multiple female contestants over the course of several weeks in hopes of finding love. She got a phone call from the casting office last April asking if she’d be interested in going through the screening process. She did, made the cut and went to Los Angeles to film the show that would soon change her life.

On March 24, Pasquarosa became the first Massachusetts native to win “The Bachelor.” She and Grant Ellis got engaged on the show and remain together: Ellis is flying into Boston Wednesday, in fact.

Pasquarosa, who now lives in Waltham, spoke with the Newton Beacon this week for a Q&A about her relationship with her family, her experience being vulnerable in front of the camera, and her goals.

Where were you when you got the call saying you made the show? 

It was awesome, because I was on Cape Cod. My family goes to Cape Cod every summer. Not just my immediate family—all my dad’s siblings. It was maybe 40 or 50 of us. I was getting really excited, and I wasn’t telling anybody because I didn’t want to jinx it. [The show] called me, and we were having Italian night. I grabbed all my cousins, and we sat in a little circle, and I was like, “Do you guys want to know a secret? I’m going on ‘The Bachelor.’” Everybody was just so excited. They gave me amazing words of confidence.

Rewind. What’s Italian night?

Oh my gosh. So we do theme nights when we go down the Cape. We usually have American night, and then we’ll do Italian night. We were decked out in all of our Italian gear. My family goes hard when it comes to dressing up. 

You guys seem so close. Tell me about your relationship with your family. 

My family is the center of my life. I have 19 first cousins. I technically have 18, but my best friend has been friends with me since fourth grade, and so she’s wrapped into all my family stuff and comes to all the vacations. We’d spend the summers together. We did birthday parties together, and all my aunts are basically like my parents. I’m really lucky in that sense, because we all really ride for each other. We obviously have differences in the way we view life, but my Nana really raised all of us to just kind of be compassionate and kind. Her motto was, “It’s nice to be nice.” And so, you know, we have a phrase, “Be like Nana.” I just feel really lucky because not many people get like this amount of love surrounding them. 

On the season finale of “The Bachelor,” Grant Ellis proposes to Newton native Juliana Pasquarosa. Photo Courtesy of Disney/ABC

Was there anything about the filming process that surprised you?

I think that if you go in from a lead’s perspective, like from Grant, you really have to advocate for yourself. You can’t let them kind of run your life. They tried that with me a couple of times, and I definitely stood my ground for certain things and put a stop to it and spoke up. You can’t forget that production has a job to do, and the job is to create a reality TV show.

How did you kind of carry yourself and keep your head on your shoulders when you’re having those difficult conversations?

I definitely kept my composure as best that I could, because I wanted them to understand that I wasn’t speaking out of anger or emotion. I just was very confident in the person that I was. Another cute little thing is that I asked my friends and my family, before I left, “Write me letters.” There’s no communication by any means [while filming], so I would read them, and it would bring me back to my center. I definitely prayed a lot, too. 

Tell me a little bit about your relationship to Newton. What would you say is the most Massachusetts thing about you?

I mean, I was drinking iced coffee no matter where we were, even in Scotland. It was so cold, and I was like, “I need an iced coffee, immediately.” And people were like, “Aren’t you cold?” And I’m like, “I don’t care. We run on Dunks, baby.” This ain’t no Dunks, but I definitely at least needed iced. … I definitely have very strong boundaries of what I allow into my life. I feel like it’s a little bit of a Boston thing. You have some edge to you, but you’re not just a Masshole all the time.

Newton’s Juliana Pasquarosa, shown here with her family in 2022, competed in and won this season of “The Bachelor.” Courtesy photo

Have you gotten to show Grant around Newton? 

Yeah! For my hometown [episode], we did go to Olivia’s Bistro, which is a restaurant me and my family frequent almost once a week. We went to D&A — I love their pizza — and Antoine’s Pastry, which, of course, who doesn’t love Antoine’s? We went to a florist in Newton as well, Busy Bee. He’s flying into Boston on Wednesday, so we’re gonna take him back to Olivia’s. We’re gonna take him into the North End and go to Bricco and MIA. We’ll just kind of bop around. I really want to show him the actual life that I live here.

Do you feel confident you guys are gonna get married?

Definitely. It’s so funny, because in all the interviews right after, I think people want to hear that we’re gonna get married by the end of this year or next year. In full reality, we have so much we need to get to know about each other. I feel confident that he and I will be a really good match long term, but I would never, ever jump into something as serious as a marriage without just like knowing all the parts of somebody that I’ll get. Of course, we’ll change and evolve and grow together. I want to feel like I know him to his core before I would ever even consider that.

I totally get that. How did you break the news to your family that you won?

When we finished filming, I had a layover in Miami coming back from the DR [Dominican Republic]. At that point, when I was able to split from production, is when they handed me my phone back. I was sitting eating sushi with one of the handlers, the people that take care of you, and she gave me my phone, and I just stared at it. I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t even know if I could turn it on. The first thing I did was call my sister, and she was in the DR because she was at a wedding that I was supposed to be in. The first thing she said [when she picked up the phone] was “Can you tell me?” I looked at the handler, and I was like, “Can I tell her?” She nodded, and I just said. “I’m engaged!” I talked to her for maybe 10 minutes, hung up, texted my brother, and I called my dad, told him I had really good news, and asked him if he could pick me up from the airport. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, but you can’t tell everybody.

Newton’s Juliana Pasquarosa, shown here at her 2014 high school graduation, competed in and won this season of “The Bachelor.” Courtesy photo

How has the transition after the show been? What’s next for you?

I’m still trying to recharge in all the senses. I really do want to get my feet back planted at work. I really love what I do, but at the same time I want to try and take advantage of opportunities that come into my life because of this platform I have, as long as it aligns with who I am. I don’t ever really foresee me moving out to LA. I don’t necessarily foresee trying to make a career out of this. But I would love to have, like, a secondary income from it. Grant and I really talked a lot about, down the line, trying to do a lot with addiction and raising awareness. 

My sister and I are starting a loungewear line. We’ve been working on it for two years now. It’s in memory of my grandmother. It’s called “The Nice Girls Label,” because her phrase is, “It’s nice to be nice.” We’re hoping to launch mid-April. 

What is something that you wish people knew about you?

I’m very strong with my mind and my confidence. But I think something that not a lot of people know is that I am, like, a bit sensitive, and I have a bit of, like a soft heart, you know, I can put up a pretty good front, in the sense of boundaries to protect myself. But once I let people into my life, I ride or die for them.

This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.