Sending a message? Chris Harrison presented Becca Kufrin and Garrett Yrigoyen with a minivan during the Monday, August 6, Bachelorette: After the Final Rose finale special, but it seems there was more to the gift than just a new method of transportation.
Fans on social media were quick to point out a blue and yellow Human Rights Campaign equality bumper sticker on the back of the van, which the ABC series gifted the pair as a nod to Yrigoyen’s limo entrance during the season 14 premiere. While the decal may have gone unnoticed in the past, Twitter users assumed that producers put the sticker on the van as a way of addressing Yrigoyen’s Instagram controversy. (The reality TV personality came under fire in May for “liking” memes that mocked immigrants, Parkland shooting survivors and the transgender community.)
“@HRC Did you all notice the HRC sticker on the back of the Bachelorette van? Damage control?” one person wrote. “#bachelorettefinale #bachelorette #MiniVan #DamageControl.”
Another viewer tweeted: “Whoever put the equality bumper sticker on that mini van at the end is the real winner of the bachelorette.”
While ABC has yet to publicly comment on whether or not the sticker was place on the van intentionally, Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss retweeted a post about “trolling” Yrigoyen with the decal.
“Look at producers trolling Garrett with an #equality bumper sticker on the free minivan! #TheBacheloretteFinale,” the post read.
Yrigoyen apologized for his actions in a lengthy Instagram statement on May 31 and apologized for a second time during Monday night’s finale.
“I’m just trying to grow as a person, be a better person on a daily basis. She’s helped me through everything,” Yrigoyen told viewers. “We’ve been honest and open and transparent with one another since the beginning. And when that all came out, we attacked it, because I feel like when I was liking things, it was going against what she stands for, and that made it really hard on us as a couple. So when we started talking about that, we got through that together, and we’re growing, we’re progressing and we’re moving forward.”
Kufrin, for her part, stood by Yrigoyen, explaining that she “got to see his heart [and] his soul.”
“And the Instagram situation, I don’t condone that, and I know that he stands by his apology and he feels so bad for everyone that he did offend and he didn’t mean it,” she added. “But I just want to move forward and to learn and to grow and to continue to educate ourselves.”
