ABCIn a new interview on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’, the 35-year-old lawyer and former ‘Bachelorette’ reveals that she got ‘a lot of nasty messages trolling’ from the audience.’
- Jun 19, 2020
AceShowbiz – Rachel Lindsay may be the first black people to lead a season of “The Bachelorette“. However, that doesn’t mean she escaped a “nasty” racist experience while appearing on the show. In a recent interview on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen“, Rachel revealed that she got “a lot of nasty messages trolling” from the audience.”
“I definitely experienced it when it came to picking the men. My husband [Bryan Abasolo] is Colombian so I got a lot of racism towards the fact that we were in an interracial relationship,” the 35-year-old lawyer explained.
She also addressed one racist contestant, Lee Garrett, who was later removed from her season two weeks into production. “I did have a racist contestant on my season,” Rachel said. “They said they hadn’t done a good job of vetting out that he was racist or had done racist things in the past — but I would hope in the future it would never happen again. They received a lot of heat from that.”
“One of the things that I’m fighting for with Matt James as the first Black Bachelor is for them to do a better job of vetting contestants. You need a person of color in the decision room so that doesn’t happen to them,” the Texas native said of Matt, who was previously announced to be the next leading man of “The Bachelor“.
While the franchise made a history by appointing a black male to be the next Bachelor, Rachel admitted that she couldn’t help but question the timing. “It does seem like a reaction to what’s happening in our country. Did a man have to die in such a public way on a national stage for you to say ‘now is the time to have a Black Bachelor?’ ” she asked, referring to George Floyd, who was murdered by a Minneapolis cop.
“That’s what I hate — it’s taking away from this moment. What I wanted was some acknowledgement and some recognition that they’ve been wrong in part of the problem and that they’re going to vow to take the necessary changes to bring diversity internally and to more contestants of color on the show,” she continued.
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Of producers and ABC, Rachel said, “They told me that they heard me. And that they are wanting to do more and make changes. And they actually did release a statement after they announced [Matt James], and that they’re vowing to make changes internally and to have more contestants of color.”
Source: Television - aceshowbiz.com
