Rachel Lindsay and Raven Gates: A Timeline of the ‘Bachelor’ Alums’ Friendship and Falling Out

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

Rachel Lindsay and Raven Gates: A Timeline of the ‘Bachelor’ Alums’ Friendship and Falling Out

From friends to foes. Rachel Lindsay and Raven Gates are not the first Bachelor alums to become friends while filming the show, but their subsequent feud has been one of the biggest mysteries in the franchise’s history. The attorney and the Grey Suede boutique owner met during Nick Viall’s season 21 of The Bachelor, which filmed in late 2016 and aired from January 2017 to March 2017. Lindsay finished in third place, while Gates was the runner-up. (Vanessa Grimaldi got engaged to the leading man, but they called it quits in August 2017.) Although Lindsay and Gates did not find love on the ABC reality show, their tight bond with one another was evident when the Miss Me With That author was named the season 13 Bachelorette. “My day one, my soul friend, my person!! Not only is she making history by being the first African American female to have a bachelor/ette lead BUT she is MORE than that!!” Gates wrote via Instagram in 2017. “To list all of her attributes and qualities that I love would be too long to type. America will soon find out that She IS laughter. She IS friendship. And she IS LOVE. I am ALWAYS in your corner Rach! I love you so much!! Now go show America what they’ve been missing!!!! & bring home the Love of your Life!!!!!!” [jwplayer QrWiA5Nh-zhNYySv2] Despite their once close relationship, fans noticed that the Bachelor in Paradise alum was not present for Lindsay’s August 2019 wedding to Bryan Abasolo, prompting questions about where the former pals stood. The Extra correspondent confirmed in September 2019 that she and Gates had a falling out. The following month, Viall weighed in on the feud while appearing on Lindsay’s “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. “I quite like Raven. This is not about me criticizing Raven because I don’t like her; I think she’s great. I think she’s great in person,” the former Bachelor said in October 2019. “I think sometimes the characters she portrays herself to be on the TV show and on Instagram is totally full of s--t and lying and bulls--t, and I think she talks s--t about people all the time, and I think that’s totally fine. I don’t like when people sometimes pretend to be a certain way.” Viall added that Gates “had a bit of a dark side to her” and “could be manipulative and all those things and the whole picture of Raven that was charming.” Scroll through the gallery below for a full breakdown of Lindsay and Gates’ friendship and eventual falling out: [podcast_block]

Credit: John Salangsang/Shutterstock

2016

Gates was one of several women — including Astrid Loch, Alexis Waters, Whitney Fransway and Kristina Schulman — that Lindsay became friends with while vying for Viall on The Bachelor. 

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

July 2017

The Arkansas native accompanied Loch, Waters, Danielle Lombard, Jasmine Goode and Sarah Vendal on a trip to the Dominican Republic to celebrate Lindsay’s engagement to Abasolo. Lindsay, however, missed her flight, so her friends partied without her. 

Credit: Courtesy Alexis Waters/Instagram

July 2018

Waters hinted at drama between Gates and Lindsay while discussing the former Bachelorette’s 33rd birthday party. “There was somebody that was invited that wasn’t supposed to be there. … Non-Bachelor world, he came, and she got pissed,” she said on the “Morning Toast” podcast. “We didn’t apologize. It was me, Astrid, Raven, Danielle, Jasmine. We all got in trouble.”  

Gates downplayed the situation days later. “Big Rach was not mad at me,” she insisted during an appearance on the podcast. “Big Rach was not mad at Kristina. Big Rach was mad at everybody else. … Someone was invited to the party that wasn’t supposed to be there. … Everyone was drunk. It was just, like, one of those things. Miscommunication.”  

That same month, the businesswoman posted her final Instagram photo with Lindsay. “Big laughs with Big Rach,” she captioned a pic of the pair laughing on a float in Bermuda. 

Credit: Rob Latour/Shutterstock

July 2019

Eagle-eyed fans noticed Gates did not attend Lindsay’s bachelorette party in Costa Rica, though Loch, Schulman, Waters and Fransway were there. The following month, Gates was a no-show at Lindsay’s wedding to Abasolo.  

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

September 2019

After months of rumors circulating, Lindsay confirmed that her friendship with Gates was over. “All I’ll say is she knows what she did,” she said on the “Morning Toast” podcast. “You can ask her. Maybe you’ll have her on [the show] and she can talk about it.”  

The “Higher Learning” podcast cohost doubled down in October 2019 when asked why she and her former castmate were no longer friends. “I can’t say. I promised I wouldn’t say. But it was enough for me to not want to be friends with her anymore,” she explained on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “And I never will be.” 

Credit: Courtesy Raven Gates/Instagram

November 2019

Gates broke her silence on the drama, claiming that she was “just as shocked as everybody else” about her feud with Lindsay. 

“I wish I had answers, but I don’t and I don’t know if I ever will,” she said on the “Off the Vine” podcast. “I have been really saddened by the whole thing just because I really loved her. I guess I just have to put it to rest and it is what it is.”  

Gates also alleged that she was not to blame for the falling out. “I’m not going to say anything bad about her because that’s not in my heart or in my spirit,” she continued. “I wish her nothing but the best but I have loved her, I will always love her. … I also want it to be very clear that I have never done her wrong.”

Credit: Courtesy Adam Gottschalk/Instagram

April 2021

Gates confirmed in January 2020 that Lindsay was not invited to her wedding to Adam Gottschalk, whom she fell for during season 4 of Bachelor in Paradise in 2017. “She doesn’t like me,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “I don’t want people at my wedding that don’t like me. That’s all I know.”  

The entrepreneur also reiterated at the time that she did not “know exactly” what happened between the two to cause their beef, adding: “I tried to reach out to her to either squash it or figure out what the problem was to fix it. She didn’t want to talk to me.”  

After the public back and forth, Lindsay was not present when Gottschalk — who was, coincidentally, a contestant on Lindsay’s season of The Bachelorette — and Gates tied the knot in April 2021.  

Credit: MediaPunch/Shutterstock

January 2022

Lindsay touched on her relationship with Gates in her 2022 book, Miss Me With That. She revealed that the duo exchanged notes through producers after the Texas native was sent home on The Bachelor, but the author still refused to share the reason for their feud.  

“Other than to say I found myself in a situation where I felt the need to protect and remove myself, these are the only details I’m going to provide,” she wrote. 

Elsewhere in the book, Lindsay claimed that while filming The Bachelor, Gates read aloud from a journal what her first impressions of her fellow contestants were. “’Rachel — she has Black skin.’ What the f--k? Who says that s--t? Not only do you think it, but you actually say it out loud for people to hear? ‘And she seems nice,’” she recalled, noting that she gave Gates the benefit of the doubt because she is from Arkansas.