Standing her ground. Rachel Lindsay explained why she took a hard stance against Garrett Yrigoyen amid his controversial statements surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement.
“My wording was harsh. It was definitely harsh, but you have to understand where I’m coming from when I say those things,” the former Bachelorette, 35, said in a Friday, July 31, Instagram Live video. “It’s not a one-time thing. It’s not simply based on Blue Lives Matter, which I will encourage all the people in my comments who want to counter what I say with ‘Blue Lives Matter,’ look into that movement and see when it was created and what it was actually created for and against.”
She continued: “My comments were harsh because I was combatting something that’s very harsh, so if you think that what I said was problematic, maybe you should look at the reason I said it. My words were harsh because I think that when you’re talking and saying things that are homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist, sexist, I think that it deserves a harsh response.”
Lindsay noted that she could not stay out of the issue any longer. “I have been silent for a long time because this isn’t the first time these words have been spoken,” she told fans. “They have been spoken for years and years, and I was respectful and I did take the higher road, for all those people out there saying that I don’t. … I’ve had enough.”
The reality star concluded by encouraging her followers to speak up in a similar fashion. “[When] you double down on it, I believe that I can have a harsh response to that because those things that you are standing for represent hate and that’s what you’re spreading,” she said.
Earlier this week, Lindsay weighed in on the backlash surrounding Yrigoyen, 31, who got engaged to Lindsay’s “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast cohost Becca Kufrin during season 14 of The Bachelorette.
“I think he’s a piece of s—t,” she admitted on the Wednesday, July 29, episode of the “Everything Iconic” podcast. “I have said to her, ‘I will not f—k with him.’ He has doubled down on his beliefs. This isn’t the first time he’s had problematic behavior. When he was on the season, he had a history of ‘liking’ things that were racist, sexist, homophobic, calling the Parkland students child actors, it was a lot, so this is who this man is. And he’s a piece of s–t to me.”
The California native made headlines in June when he showed support for officers amid protests against police brutality and racism.
Kufrin, for her part, shared her feelings about the ordeal later that month, confessing on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast that she did not know where their relationship stood: “It’s something that we are trying to work through and discuss and do work on at home at this time and that’s where the work will remain and that’s really the best I can give you at this point.”
