‘Bachelor’ Peter Weber Sends Flirty Response to Charlize Theron After Her ‘Turbulence’ Picture

Is Peter Weber setting his sights on Charlize Theron? After the Oscar-winner made reference on Instagram to “turbulence” in Weber’s upcoming season of The Bachelor, the pilot responded with a flirty message of his own mirroring Theron’s. Bachelor Nation first whipped into a frenzy when the Bombshell actress posed alongside a poster of Weber Sunday, writing, “Turbulence I like.”

With such an A-lister shoutout, Weber made sure his response was perfect, imitating Theron’s initial photo, but standing beside a poster of Theron advertising Christian Dior’s J’adore perfume. “Turbulence can be fun,” he captioned the photo.

This little social media interaction had plenty of Bachelor Nation’s major players rooting on the unexpected pairing, with former Bachelor Colton Underwood cheering, “Shoot your shot!”

Longtime host Chris Harrison even weighed in, writing, “Well played kid…well played.”

Weber’s season of the ABC dating show kicks off Monday, Jan. 6, and despite his decision to air his private dating life on TV beginning with Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette, Weber told PEOPLE he was looking for a greater sense of privacy when it comes to his personal life.

“A whole part of my life has just been blown up in the public,” he told the outlet. “My private life is my private life is my private life and I don’t like that it defines me.”

He continued, “I understand that it came out… And I know people have had fun with it and I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve been laid-back and easygoing about it. But there’s so much more to me than just a windmill. And I’m ready for that to be left in the past.”

Even when it comes to his windmill dalliance with Brown during the overnight dates, Weber noted, “Out of respect for hopefully my future wife that I want to find, we just need to move on.”

Weber was definitely ready for love this year, saying he was “pleasantly surprised” to develop feelings so quickly for the women of his season. “You can’t fake chemistry,” he said. “I definitely felt an initial spark right off the bat. There were for sure a couple [women] that I felt really strongly for.”

The Bachelor returns Monday, Jan. 6 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: Eric McCandless via Getty Images