A Black 'Bachelorette' Could Never Do What Taylor Frankie Paul Did

Taylor Frankie Paul flew too close to the sun. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star was on the precipice of greatness. Her season of The Bachelorette ushered in a new era for the ABC dating franchise. One that shed light on an unspoken truth: reality television, particularly The Bachelor and its spin-offs, is not real. It’s a myth. 

In 2021, Chris Harrison, the host and face of The Bachelor franchise for 19 years, was ousted after he asked viewers to extend grace to contestant Rachael Kirkconnell amid resurfaced images of her at a 2018 plantation party. Kirkconnell was not a regular contestant; she won Matt James’ season of The Bachelor, which made history as the first season to feature a Black male lead. In 2024, Jenn Tran, who made history as the first Asian American woman to lead The Bachelorette, received racially insensitive comments and remarks from Bachelor Nation, the series’ fandom, across social media. She spoke to Glamour about her disappointment in the lack of Asian male contestants for her season. 

After these controversies eroded fans’ faith in the show, The Bachelor was no longer the place for love, nor was it a place for American women to see representations of themselves. Instead, the once-popular dating show became the entry point to launch a career as a content creator or social media star. Instead of rectifying its mistakes, the show leaned in.

Paul, a Mormon wife who made a name for herself by revealing a swinging scandal on TikTok, became the show’s lifeline. No one believed in the dream of The Bachelorette anymore, but they did believe in Paul, and Hulu had the numbers to prove it. When Mormon Wives surpassed The Kardashians on the streaming platform, Paul ascended from average reality TV star to celebrity. Now, she was of extreme value to Disney, the parent company that operates ABC and Hulu. And the powers that be did everything to assist in her rise. 

A red-carpet appearance at the 2026 Oscars. A profile in Vulture. A press tour on the daytime television circuit: Good Morning America, Live With Kelly and Mark. ABC was determined to protect its biggest star and used in-house talent to do so, not out of the goodness of their hearts or concern for Paul, but the value she brought to a stalled franchise that had become known for its controversies, many of which centered on racial issues. 

If the end goal of The Bachelorette is to become a prominent influencer, why not hire one? Paul was the solution. An answered prayer that spoke to the millions of Americans enamored with the trad-wife aesthetics of Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman, obsessed with the bickering and fighting of Mormon and non-Mormon wives on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and spend their days doomscrolling on social media, in favor of high protein recipes and the next TikTok dance craze. 

Through one decision, ABC was able to access these online communities that were not concerned with representation or the show’s previous scandals and introduce them to the Bachelorette franchise. Like a missionary, Paul was welcomed into network television with the belief that her followers would come too. What ABC got instead was their greatest controversy yet.

The protection given to Paul by the network was not bestowed upon Rachel Lindsay, who made history as the first Black woman to lead The Bachelorette. Nor would she be given the platform and support of the network if she had engaged in the same series of behaviors as Paul did. 

There would be no heartfelt statement towards Lindsay and her family if she were physically violent towards a former romantic partner of hers. There would be no empathy given to her if she were the single parent of multiple children with different fathers. There would be no pilot to greenlight an eight-episode season to document the experiences of her friend group after a swinging scandal. Because of the color of her skin and the history associated with it, Lindsay would have been characterized as a Jezebel, a deviant woman who engages in sexual immorality. Her race and gender have been the catalyst for conversations about the hypersexualization of Black women and the inherent lack of their desirability, which is evidenced by their sharp decline in marriage rates. There would be no redemption tour. There would be an execution.  

Lindsay had to be twice as good to receive half as much from The Bachelor. And, it still wasn’t good enough. “I couldn’t be like the Bachelorettes who had come before — somebody who was still living at home with her parents, who had ‘pageant queen’ on her résumé,” Lindsay wrote in a 2021 essay for Vulture. “I was a lawyer. My father was a federal judge. I had a squeaky-clean record. I had to be a good Black girl, an exceptional Black girl. I had to be someone the viewer could accept. And I was a token until I made sure I wasn’t.”

The reality is that Paul will be on our screens again. It might not be the silver screen, since ABC has cancelled her season of The Bachelorette and filming has ceased on Mormon Wives, but there’s always TikTok. Even now, as the headlines continue to surge about the release of a 2023 video that shows her in a domestic incident with her ex, Dakota Mortensen, she continues to interact with users on the social media platform, while some fans beg for the season to be released. Would a Black Bachelorette get the same forgiveness? Perhaps ABC will never dare to find out because doing so would create a shift in who society believes is deserving of a platform.