Becca Kufrin broke her silence on her fiancé Garrett Yrigoyen’s controversial post about police during a candid — and emotional — conversation with Rachel Lindsay.
“Garrett is my fiancé and I love him and to his core, I believe that he is a good person. What he posted … I don’t align with and I don’t agree with,” the season 14 Bachelorette, 30, began on the Tuesday, June 9, episode of their “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. “I don’t think he meant it in a malicious way, I do think it was tone deaf and it was the wrong time and message and sentiment. … I’m trying to get him to see the bigger picture.”
Kufrin went on to explain that one of Yrigoyen’s “buddy’s partner got shot in the back of the head during one of these riots, so he wanted to “stand by the cops too.” While Kufrin pointed out that Yrigoyen, 31, believes his post didn’t just mean “cops lives matter,” Lindsay disagreed.
“That is what it means. That’s 100 percent what it means. I don’t care what he wrote after it,” the season 13 Bachelorette, 35, replied.
Yrigoyen made headlines on June 4 after he expressed his support for police officers as protests against systemic racism and police brutality continue across the country following the death of George Floyd.
After admitting that it was “brave” of Kufrin to speak about Yrigoyen’s post and acknowledging that her cohost has been through a lot recently, including the death of her grandfather, Lindsay pointed out that his social media activity isn’t “an isolated accident.” (Yrigoyen came under fire for “liking” offensive posts mocking Parkland shooting survivors, immigration and members of the LGBTQ community in 2018 when he competed on Kufrin’s season. He has since apologized.)
“Nothing that I’m about to say is nothing I haven’t already told you. Becca told me not to hold back. … As a black woman, it is very important for me to tell you how Garrett’s post made me feel,” Lindsay said. “This is not an isolated accident with Garrett’s behavior and I never spoke about what Garrett did during your season. I never spoke about it and it was out of respect for you and your relationship. … To me, this is what Garrett thinks, this is what Garrett is. He posted a black box. He never said ‘black lives matter.’ He posted fists of every color, which to me is like, ‘Everybody, all lives.’ And then the very next post is the thin blue line with a heartfelt, thought-out caption that he said with his chest. And to me, that is what you feel and that is what you believe. I don’t think Garrett is malicious, but Garrett is what the problem is.”
Kufrin, who noted that her sister had similar concerns, revealed that she is trying to educate Yrigoyen. Lindsay then got emotional after the Minnesota native reiterated that Yrigoyen’s intentions weren’t “malicious.”
“I don’t understand why people are just now getting it,” Lindsay said. “We’ve f—king been going through this s—t. I don’t understand why you say, ‘It wasn’t malicious’ or ‘I’m just now understanding things.’ You have to admit that you made a choice to not see it. … A message what Garrett posted totally contradicts the movement that we’re trying to push forward. And to see so many people ‘like’ it … the thinking that Garrett has is a bigger problem.”
Lindsay went on to say that she would “rather somebody blatantly be racist” than have the same mindset as Yrigoyen.
“The problem is the people who don’t realize what they’re doing is a form of racism, the problem is people who are putting things out there against the movement and the problem is doing things that perpetuate and play into a particular behavior, which is what I have an issue with the Bachelor franchise,” she said. “Garrett’s post is the problem and the thinking that went into it. You don’t think black people have law enforcement in their family? … It’s very selfish and it is your white privilege to think that that is the message that you need to put out when black people are just suffering in such a huge way in this country.”
Yrigoyen has yet to publicly respond to Kufrin and Lindsay’s podcast episode.
