Speaking out for good. Rachel Lindsay has never been one to stay quiet about important matters — and that’s not changing now.
“If I could change one thing, it’s that the show doesn’t reflect the real world,” the season 13 Bachelorette, 34, told The Associated Press in a fall interview, posted on Monday, March 2. “You’re just now having, on Bachelor in Paradise, a same-sex relationship and they had to bring somebody who wasn’t even a cast member on the show to make that happen.”
Lindsay is referring to Demi Burnett. During season 6 of Bachelor in Paradise, Burnett’s girlfriend from home, Kristian Haggerty, came onto the show. (Though they got engaged at the end of the season in September 2019, they later split.)
As the only black lead in the franchise’s history, the lawyer explained that she feels like it’s her responsibility to continue to ask questions and give suggestions for how the show could be better.
“The girls all look the same way. My first reaction to when someone said, ‘You should be on The Bachelor,’ [was] ‘Black people don’t go far on that show.’ We laughed about it but it’s actually true,” she shared. “My biggest complaint is that the show does not reflect what the real world looks like. I would have women of all ages. I mean, there has to be a cut-off point, but I’d have women of different shapes, sizes, backgrounds, ethnicities. I would change it completely.”
Lindsay, who married the winner of her season, Bryan Abasolo, later admitted she’s doesn’t think the show will continue in its current format. Her interview was posted hours after ABC announced the new Bachelorette season 16 star is Clare Crawley, who previously appeared on The Bachelor, two seasons of Bachelor in Paradise and The Bachelor Winter Games. At 38, she is the oldest female lead.
“I honestly don’t know how much longer the show can survive in this day and age, just to be honest, because social media spoils so many things,” Lindsay told AP. “So many people come on, no job, no career, never worked a day in their life because they’re going to build it off of being Instagram famous or any other type of social media that you want to insert in there. I think it’s going to be harder for them to find relationships that work. … The show is either going to have to change or it’s gonna end.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
