As a result, she was unable to connect with the other women in the house. I knew the audience was going to look at me as an angry Black female.
I laughed. I never raised my voice because I was aware of what was going on. When she started getting emotional, I knew, This is going to be bad. We did not come to any type of agreement. I am happy to say that, in real life, we put our differences aside and have a great and supportive relationship.
Why would you not show emotion? I was bawling. No, she picked me. One, because she knew I was a threat — Nick liked me the second most.
Two, I felt she was projecting an unconscious bias onto me. There were moments like that when they protected me. Astrid was holding my hair back in the bathroom. My hair was disheveled. They could have taken those clips and depicted me as a wild Jezebel. An insider later told me they had been thinking of me as the first Black Bachelorette way back during my audition. At the time, there had been a shift in leadership at ABC.
Channing Dungey, who is a Black woman, had just taken over as president. So it had to be a Black woman. To become the Bachelorette, I had to get dumped by Nick. We were in Finland for our fantasy-suite episode. I had this whole thing about being Mrs.
Claus because we were going to Finland. I had red lingerie. I bought a mink hat. The day before had been the presidential election — I stayed up all night and watched Trump win.
I ended up getting drunk on the date because I was so upset. I liked him, but I was not ready to express it in that way. I blacked out. Nick gave me Tylenol and carried me up the stairs. I never even made it into the Mrs. Claus outfit. After that, I was off the show. I was devastated. Not because I had lost the love of my life. The producers are your parents.
The girls are your friends. Your tears are everything you have to let go of and everything you have to go back to. You just feel very rejected — by the franchise, the process, the guy.
I thought they were checking on my well-being. Then one day back home, I went to church. And if the rumors are right, you go far. I thought maybe the moment was bigger than me.
The process begins with a round of interviews. You meet with the heads of the production company and the network. We never do this. Please say yes. I expressed my concerns about being the first Black lead. I talked about the fact that there were no Black people behind the camera and how I wanted that to change.
I wanted a diverse season. I wanted it to be Black in every way. They deferred to me and asked questions. Was I comfortable with the makeup artist? How did I want my hair done? I felt like they were listening to me.
So I said yes. I connected with way more of the men than I had anticipated. I met, and later married, the love of my life, Bryan Abasolo. When he started speaking Spanish to me on the first night, I was like, Okay. We had an immediate banter. Still, I had expected more diversity. In my case, the drama was largely centered around race.
But I was constantly put in situations where there was a little bit of that going on. For one, several of the Black men on my season were not into Black women. Story of my life — dealing with colorism and being held to a European standard of beauty. But to them it was — which is how Will Gaskins ended up getting a one-on-one date with me. They wanted to explore the narrative of a Black man who had barely dated any Black women. It was the worst date. He was so uncomfortable kissing me.
And then there was Lee Garrett. As it was reported while my season aired, his Twitter was full of hate toward Black people and other marginalized groups.
He instigated fights on the show. The show used this person to play into the stereotype of the angry Black man. As details about him started to come out, I tried to give the show the benefit of the doubt. But as I reflected on it, I thought, No. You brought him on knowing he was ignorant. You brought him on to see what could happen. They chose the low-hanging fruit. It told me everything I needed to know. Things came to a head during episode four.
There is a big moment where you see me crying. It was a rose-ceremony night, and I was trying to figure out whom to send home.
I was talking to one contestant, and I could hear Lee and Kenny arguing in the other room. The fact that we had to ration the Black men was extremely upsetting. It dawned on me, looking around the room, that I had nobody to talk to. Nobody was with me. But she was white, and there were certain things she was not going to be able to understand. And I have to be the Black lead.
And then there was a knock on my door. I thought, Please do not bring in Chris Harrison. And who was it? When I signed up, I knew I was alone. When I cried in that moment, I knew I was alone.
And when I stopped crying, I knew I was alone. Those tears were for me. And then I put my big-girl pants on and got over it. That was my defense mechanism, pre-therapy. I went on the show in part because I wanted to depict a Black woman at the center of a love story.
I liked Peter. There was a time, in the beginning, when I thought it could be him. Bryan was so charming, but viewers saw him as cheesy. He was from Miami; he was portrayed as a playboy. He told me he never felt more Latino than when he was on the show because of the way producers edited him and what they wanted him to talk about.
This man runs a nonprofit. But they gave us his whiteness. The end of the season centered on the absentee-Black-father narrative , yet again playing into a stereotype. Then came Rachael Kirkconnell , James' eventual winner and current girlfriend. She came under fire after photos surfaced of her at an Old South plantation-themed party while in college. Kirkconnell has since apologized and asked people to stop defending her actions.
After the photos and other social media accusations came to light, former franchise host Chris Harrison sat down for a now infamous interview with Lindsay. Harrison's exit from the franchise was made official earlier this month. During the interview, Harrison brought up the "woke police" and referred to Kirkconnell as "this poor girl. And neither, I think, had America," Lindsay writes.
While Lindsay notes that she and Harrison, whom she'd once referred to as her "fairy godfather," weren't great friends before the interview, she writes that "there had been mutual respect" until that moment.
Later, I would be known as the one responsible for Harrison eventually leaving the franchise. Bachelor Klan is hateful, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and homophobic. They are afraid of change. They are afraid to be uncomfortable. They are afraid when they get called out," she writes. I received death threats and personal attacks. I had to hire people to protect me. And so I decided to remove myself from it all. Years before she decided to exit the franchise, Lindsay's colleagues encouraged her to apply for the show, as she had just gotten out of a five-year relationship and wasn't fulfilled by her job as a lawyer.
Nobody was Black. In the front, there were three chairs: two for the executive producers and one for me," she recalls of the casting process. After expressing her concerns about Black people not being "represented" within the franchise, she agreed to appear on the show.
When Viall awarded her the first impression rose, Lindsay writes, she "instantly fell for the fairy tale. As Lindsay made it further and further into the season, she and fellow frontrunner Vanessa Grimaldi were told by producers to talk out their differences. The exchange left Lindsay concerned that the audience would view her as "an angry Black female. Still, she continued on to the Fantasy Suite dates with Viall, during which, she writes, they did not sleep together.
I ended up getting drunk on the date because I was so upset," she recalls. Rachel Lindsay officially ended her contract with Bachelor Nation in April, but now, is sharing exactly what led to that choice.
The season 13 Bachelorette, 36, spoke out about her journey on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in a new op-ed for New York Magazine , explaining her ups and downs with the franchise. In February, she interviewed longtime host Chris Harrison on Extra , during which he defended contestant Rachael Kirkconnell after racially charged Instagram posts resurfaced. He apologized multiple times after receiving backlash but ultimately stepped away from the franchise for good earlier this month, receiving a reportedly massive payout.
Why would you not show emotion? I was bawling.
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