January Jones Says She and ‘the Bachelor’ Star Nick Viall Went ‘on a Couple Dates

January Jones is offering up details about dating Nick Viall.

The actress, best known for her role as Betty Draper in Mad Men, had been rumored to be dating Viall in 2018. After multiple talk show appearances where Jones discussed her love of The Bachelor while also revealing how Viall reached out to her through the actress’s rep, fans thought they might be dating. Their Instagram activity spurred the rumors on when Viall and Jones liked and commented on each other’s posts. 

Now, Jones is setting the record straight on what really happened between her and Viall. The 42-year-old actress sat down with Dax Shepard for an episode of his podcast, Armchair Expert, where they discussed dating and, of course, Viall, according to Entertainment Tonight. 

Jones watched Viall on ‘The Bachelor’ franchise

Jones became a big fan of The Bachelor franchise during one of Viall’s appearances. He’s been a contestant twice on The Bachelorette and appeared on The Bachelor in Paradise for one season before becoming the bachelor in 2017 and starring in his own season of the reality show. Jones admitted on the podcast she became critical of Viall. 

“I got super into it and it was one of Nick’s seasons — he did several — and I was just blasting that guy,” she said referencing the comments she made about Viall on talk shows. 

During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Jones called Viall her favorite on the show, saying, “You don’t know if you like him or if he’s a scumbag. And I think that’s why I’m attracted to him maybe.”

Jones: ‘Nick slid into my DMs’

Jones then recounted what happened after she went on TV and talked about The Bachelor and Viall. She received a direct message (DM) from Viall. 

“Nick slid into my DMs, and he’s like, ‘I’m so sorry that your perception of me is so negative, I’d love to take you out to coffee and see if I can change your mind.’ And I squealed,” she told Shepard. 

Her sister convinced her to go

Jones didn’t immediately say yes to Viall’s invitation. She only accepted after getting encouragement from her sister. 

“I was like, ‘I hate that guy!’ My sister’s like, ‘If you don’t go, you will forever regret it,'” Jones said.

“So I agreed to go on a date with him, or to drinks or whatever, and as I met him I was rounding the corner and I saw him and he has a very distinct walk, and I had this instinct to, like, run up to him and wrap my legs around his waist, do you know, like they do [on the show]? I stopped myself.”

Jones: ‘All I did was grill him about the show’

What happened on their date? Jones said on the podcast it went “good” but “all I did was grill him about the show.” 

“That’s all we were talking about really,” she added. 

Jones went on to say she got behind-the-scenes details from Viall. 

“I got a lot of juicy inside stuff,” she said. “When they come out of the limo and they have these little shticks or whatever, producers are handing them to them. And then I just felt bad for the people who get, like, the dolphin costume. And here was all kinds of other stuff, but they do share a lot of germs with a lot of people.”

Their time together went so well they ended up going “on a couple dates.” Although the romance didn’t go past a few meetings, Jones explained what she found attractive about Viall. 

“The thing that attracted me to Nick was he seemed like — I mean he was cast as the ‘villain’ — but he was actually, he had a bit of a brain, you know, so there was something else there,” she said.