Rachel Lindsay Reveals First Episode Of Taylor Frankie Paul's 'The Bachelorette' Season & Calls Out ABC: 'This Is The Risk You Take?'
Rachel Lindsay is not mincing her words when it comes to Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette.
Lindsay, who led the show’s thirteenth season in 2017 and became the first Black lead in The Bachelor franchise, discussed Paul’s canceled season during a March 24 episode of her podcast, Higher Learning, which she co-hosts with Van Lathan. Lindsay called out the franchise’s history of viewing people of color as “risks” and revealed details about the unreleased season’s first episode.
“Seriously, after everything that I’ve been through with this franchise, as have other people of color,” Lindsay said. “This is the risk you want to take?”
The 40-year-old, who also appeared as a contestant on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor before leading her own season, claimed that she heard from someone close to her that “a former executive producer [who is] no longer with the show said that DEI ruined The Bachelor franchise.”
“Obviously, that is not the case,” Lindsay said, adding that she believes that the franchise won’t recover from Paul’s ill-fated season, which was cancelled after a 2023 video emerged of her throwing chairs at her ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen. Paul and Mortensen are also the subjects of a domestic assault investigation connected to a February incident, which took place after The Bachelorette was filmed.
“At the end of the day, when you thought adding diversity in the form of color is what caused the franchise to crumble, it turned out at the end of the day it was a white felon,” Lindsay noted, referencing Paul’s 2023 arrest on a felony aggravated assault charge. Paul is not a convicted felon, but is serving a 36-month probation period for a felony charge that is being held in abeyance. If she completes her probation, the charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor.
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“It was so risky for me to be opinionated or have a personality, but think about how interesting it is that then you have this and that’s the risk you want to take,” Lindsay said, emphasizing the double standard in how fans reacted to her leading the show in comparison to how they responded to a far more controversial white woman leading the franchise.
Lindsay also weighed in on the subject in the comments section of a SheKnows Instagram post, which promoted an article titled “A Black Bachelorette Could Never Do What Taylor Frankie Paul Did.” Lindsay wrote, “I was always going to watch and was actually excited to, but my reasons for watching were always different from most. It was personal for me and actually a quite comical decision even though I understood the business thinking behind it. So I was gonna watch and see how this played out. But never could had imagined it would go down this bad.”
Earlier in the episode, Lindsay revealed that she watched the unreleased first episode of Paul’s season and discussed whether the contestants on the season were aware of Paul’s past arrest.
“There was plenty of information out there before about Taylor Frankie Paul,” she explained. “I’ve seen the first episode… and I remember [the men] were saying like, ‘I’m aware that you have a big social media presence’ or ‘I’m aware that there’s a lot of information out there about you’ but the sentiment was like, ‘I want to get to know you.'”
Lindsay said that the men on Paul’s season likely knew about her past, but may not have known the extent of it. She also noted the newer allegations in February, which occurred after filming for Paul’s season wrapped. “It’s causing people to question things,” she said.