Rachel Lindsay’s Most Critical Quotes About the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Rachel Lindsay’s Most Critical Quotes About the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise

Rachel Lindsay is ready for change. The former Bachelorette has never been afraid to speak up about her issues with the Bachelor franchise. The attorney first appeared on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor in 2017. While she scored the first impression rose and made it to the final three, Viall ultimately picked Vanessa Grimaldi over runner-up Raven Gates. (Viall and Grimaldi split less than a year after the finale aired.) Lindsay went on to be named the first African American lead as the season 13 Bachelorette. While she found love with now-husband Bryan Abasolo, Lindsay was upset with the way the franchise portrayed their love story as the focus was on her popular runner-up Peter Kraus. "The Bachelor franchise does believe in happy endings — some people get an on-camera happy ending, some people get on off-camera happy ending, and some people get both," she wrote in her Bachelorette season 14 finale blog for Us Weekly. “As for my happy ending, it was not demonstrated within the confines of your television screens, but I am living it every day in real life.” [jwplayer je5xJDoN] Lindsay made headlines again in 2019 when Peter Weber was named the Bachelor over Mike Johnson, whom many fans had campaigned to become the first black Bachelor. She also criticized the show for not reflecting real life. “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 the Associated Press in March 2020. “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.” Scroll through for more of Rachel’s commentary on the franchise:

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Rachel Lindsay’s Most Critical Quotes About the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise

Rachel Lindsay is ready for change. The former Bachelorette has never been afraid to speak up about her issues with the Bachelor franchise. The attorney first appeared on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor in 2017. While she scored the first impression rose and made it to the final three, Viall ultimately picked Vanessa Grimaldi over runner-up Raven Gates. (Viall and Grimaldi split less than a year after the finale aired.) Lindsay went on to be named the first African American lead as the season 13 Bachelorette. While she found love with now-husband Bryan Abasolo, Lindsay was upset with the way the franchise portrayed their love story as the focus was on her popular runner-up Peter Kraus. "The Bachelor franchise does believe in happy endings — some people get an on-camera happy ending, some people get on off-camera happy ending, and some people get both," she wrote in her Bachelorette season 14 finale blog for Us Weekly. “As for my happy ending, it was not demonstrated within the confines of your television screens, but I am living it every day in real life.” [jwplayer je5xJDoN] Lindsay made headlines again in 2019 when Peter Weber was named the Bachelor over Mike Johnson, whom many fans had campaigned to become the first black Bachelor. She also criticized the show for not reflecting real life. “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 the Associated Press in March 2020. “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.” Scroll through for more of Rachel’s commentary on the franchise:

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On the Editing of Her Finale

“Do you ever recall seeing Bryan profess how excited he was to propose to me? Do you recall seeing me cry about how I was so excited to say yes to Bryan and get my fairytale ending? The answer would be ‘no’ to both of those questions,” Lindsay wrote in her season 14 finale blog for Us Weekly. “And it is a shame because both of those things actually happened. You just did not see them. See, you know more about the journey of my breakup than the journey to my proposal acceptance. I think it is fair to say that I was denied my on-camera happy ending.”

She continued: “She was protected and I was placed on display for three hours and labeled an angry black female. And there will always be that stigma attached to my finale because it has been said that when truth is blurred by misinformation, perception becomes reality and all is lost.”

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On Picking Hannah B.

Rachel made it clear that she didn’t think any of Colton Underwood’s contestants were ready to be the lead. “There’s just so much cattiness going on. You don’t know who to believe, you don’t know what’s true. I don’t trust any of them!” she told Us in March 2019. “She said this, she said that, and usually, when you get down to the top four, it’s drama-free. … There’s just so much going on. I don’t like it! I can’t see any of them being the next Bachelorette.”

After Hannah Brown was officially named the 15th Bachelorette, Lindsay told Us that it’s “nothing personal,” but she wasn’t happy with the network’s decision. “I separate the two: friends and [The Bachelor]. I think Hannah B. is very, very nice,” she said. “If I was 23 and in that house, I would have the time of my life. If she happens to find love, that’s great! But she wasn’t my first choice or my favorite.”

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On Lack of Diversity

ABC reunited 12 of the past 14 Bachelorettes for a reunion special in April 2019 and Lindsay couldn’t help but get emotional.

“It was sad for me to look around the room and [see that] no one else looked like me,” she told Us at the time. “It was sad for me to be the sole representation for women of color.”

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On Picking Peter Over Mike

“I think Peter seems like a very nice guy. He seems lovely. This is absolutely nothing against him, but how many Peters have we seen before? What season are we on? 24. So, we’ve seen 24 Peters,” Lindsay told Entertainment Tonight in September 2019. “I want to be hopeful, but when you have a contestant like Mike Johnson, who seems to check all the boxes, how is he not the Bachelor? I don’t understand. I’m sure they have some reason for not picking him, and I’m going to trust in that, but at the same time, the system isn’t working in giving us a Bachelor who is a person of color. So we need to change the system. Something has to be done. Break the rules, step outside the box, give the people what they want!”

Lindsay added that it’s a cycle. “The Bachelor is in charge of saying what they’re interested in and what they’re not. Some people don’t know that — they do ask you,” she explained. “You’ve seen some of the girls that Peter’s dated. It came out before, his girlfriend was in the news from the past, before Hannah. So, you know what his type is at this point. And so, I expect girls to look more like Hannah than they do like me or someone else of color.”

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On Chances of a 2nd Black Bachelorette

Lindsay admitted to Us that she was not “hopeful at all” about the network naming a second woman of color as the Bachelorette. “That’s why I keep talking about it because maybe it’ll start the conversation and maybe it’ll change,” she said in October 2019. “Even after me, you’ve had Sienne [Fleming], you’ve had Tayshia [Adams]. Not that Hannah B. was bad. But she was number nine. Tayshia was number three [of Colton’s contestants]. Usually the system picks one of the top four, why not? Before, the excuse would be, ‘No one is making it far enough.’ Now they are. So now what?”

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On Peter’s Decision Making

Lindsay declared that she “f—king over” season 24 on her “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast in February 2020. “Are you looking for a wife or a good time? Do you really need The Bachelor to find a crazy chick?” she said, referring to Victoria Fuller. “The writing is on the wall and he won’t read it. Why can’t Peter have an opinion and stick to it?”

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On the Need for Change

“If I could change one thing, it’s that the show doesn’t reflect the real world,” Lindsay told the Associated Press in March 2020. “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.”

She added that all of the female contestants “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 said. “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.”

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On Her Future Association With the Franchise

As protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement took place around the world, Lindsay made it clear that she would no longer support The Bachelor franchise if changes weren’t made. “I can’t. I have to see some type of change. It’s ridiculous. It’s embarrassing. At this point, it’s embarrassing to be affiliated with it,” she declared on a June 2020 episode of AfterBuzz TV’s Bachelor A.M. With Kelsey Meyer. “In 40 seasons, you’ve had one black lead. We have had 45 presidents and in 45 presidents, you have one black president. You are almost on par to say you’re more likely to become the president of the United States than you are a black lead in this franchise. That’s insane. That’s ridiculous.”

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On the Next Steps

After Lindsay’s comments made headlines, she detailed her hope for the ABC show in a June 2020 blog post.

“Although I have been vocal on many issues, I still feel that I have not been loud enough on the deep-rooted, 18-year systemic problems in this franchise. You never want to bite the hand that feeds you, but you also do not want to be aiding and abetting problematic behavior,” she wrote. “I am affiliated with this franchise and to be silent on some matters is to still be complicit with these cycles of detrimental conduct. If you saw your brother or sister continually doing something wrong would you not hold them accountable?”

Lindsay’s four major suggestions for the franchise included, “cast leads that are truly interested in dating outside of their race; stop making excuses for the lack of diversity and take action to rectify the problem; diversify the producers on the show to make your contestants of color feel more comfortable; and stop creating problematic story lines for people of color.”

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On Chris Harrison

Amid the season 25 controversy surrounding Matt James' frontrunner Rachael Kirkconnell, Lindsay and the longtime Bachelor host sparred on Extra in February 2021. Harrison later announced that he would be taking time away from the show for the remainder of the season.

"Where do we go as a franchise? It’s kind of hard to say," Lindsay said at the time, addressing the aftermath of the interview. "Chris has stepped aside, which I think is the right decision because, like he said, he needs to take time to get educated and on a profound and productive level to use his words. And I think he needs to understand what was done, what was wrong and what he said in that interview, and he needs time. He’s stepped away to do that. As a franchise, though, where do you go from here?"

Lindsay eventually accepted Harrison's many apologies but claimed that the ABC reality series needed to "regroup" before kicking off another season. "I think that they should just stop until … they get the train back on the tracks," she said during a March 2021 episode of her "Higher Learning" podcast. "You’re gonna go into another season but you still have all these issues. How have you fixed them coming into a new season? You really haven’t."

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On Casting

While reflecting on her own Bachelorette journey — and the journeys of fellow leads of color Matt James and Tayshia Adams — Lindsay claimed that the producers didn't want to bring on Black men who were interested in Black women.

"It's something I was worried about before I went on the show," she said on Showtime's Ziwe in May 2021. "There was a point where I broke down on camera, and they used my tears for something else, but I was getting upset at the selection of men of color. I also learned as I was going through my season that several of the Black men on my season didn't date Black women."

Her comments came two months after she claimed that "several people of color" had "removed themselves" from casting consideration ahead of Katie Thurston's season 17 of The Bachelorette amid Harrison's controversy.

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On Being Labeled as 'Angry'

During a June 2021 appearance on The View, Lindsay recounted how Kraus and Harrison contributed to her being viewed as "angry."

"I have been labeled an angry black female in Bachelor Nation. It follows me around to this day," she told her cohosts at the time. She explained that during filming for the season finale of The Bachelorette, Kraus told her she would live "a mediocre life" if she didn't choose him.

"When I came back from commercial break, the host said to me, 'Rachel, you seem angry.' I looked and I said, 'That's a strong word.' And he said, 'Well, you seem upset,'" she explained. "I hadn't raised my voice, I hadn't yelled, I hadn't said any type of curse word."

Lindsay added that Kraus tried to then claim that she was attacking him, even though he couldn't "offer any evidence" to prove that. Because of this moment, her reputation suffered and she explained why these experiences shouldn't be ignored.

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On the 'Toxic' Fandom

In a June 2021 op-ed for New York Magazine, Lindsay went into detail about her time within the ABC franchise, noting that the Bachelor Nation environment is "toxic" on several levels. "The fandom had always had a complicated relationship with me," she wrote, claiming she noticed longtime viewers "turn against" her amid her drama with Harrison. "There is a Bachelor Nation, and there is a Bachelor Klan. Bachelor Klan is hateful, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and homophobic. They are afraid of change. They are afraid to be uncomfortable. They are afraid when they get called out."

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On Justice for Mike Johnson

The attorney was "livid" when fan favorite Mike Johnson was turned away for the role of season 24 Bachelor, which went to Peter Weber instead. "He is a veteran, and there’s never been a veteran lead. He has got a million-dollar smile. He’s handsome. He was a fan favorite," she wrote in a June 2021 op-ed. "They chose someone with a pubescent haircut: Peter 'Make Sure You Know I’m Half-Latino' Weber. That was my breaking point. I was like, You know what? I’m going to use my platform to call out the show."

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On Being Called a 'Bully'

Lindsay recalled a dramatic conflict with Vanessa Grimaldi, who claimed Lindsay bullied her during Nick Viall's season of The Bachelor. "When it was over, I stormed out — and of course the producers said, 'Let's talk about that. Why would you not show emotion?' I lost it in the interview. I was bawling," she wrote in an op-ed for New York Magazine in June 2021. "I tried to explain, 'You do not understand what it is to be a Black woman in this house full of white folks and for a white woman to cry in your face and call you a bully.' Did she call any of the other women a bully? No, she picked me."

When she prompted producers to show the conversation "in its entirety," they allegedly told her, "This will never air."