I thought I could changeThe Bachelorfranchise from within.
Until I realized I was their token.
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I had been a full-time correspondent onExtrasince the previous summer, regularly recappingThe Bacheloras part of the job.
What are your thoughts about Rachael Kirkconnell and the allegations attached to her?
A simple question about a situation that was anything but.
Nobody had made a statement not Rachael, not Chris, not the web link.
I wanted someone to acknowledge it.
We all need to have a little grace, a little understanding, a little compassion.
The woke police is out there.
If I had gone to that party, I asked him, what wouldIrepresent?
He told me that 50 million people had attended a party like this.
As if things couldnt have been considered racist in 2018.
He called for sympathy for this poor girl, Rachael.
He said all this with a passion I had never seen him assert.
And neither, I think, had America.
I wouldnt say Chris and I were friends, exactly.
When youre the Bachelorette, youre traveling with him, sitting in hotels and airports.
Theres a lot of hurrying up and waiting, and hes the one you do it with.
I called him my fairy godfather.
Wed had our highs and lows, but there had been mutual respect until this interview.
I felt disrespected, but I maintained my composure because I had to.
I couldnt maintain my composure anymore.
I was exhausted, I said.
And I needed to step away from the franchise.
Later, I would be known as the one responsible for Harrisons eventuallyleaving the franchise.
(He announcedhis departureearlier this month with a reportedeight-figure settlement.
And if he spends all of that, Im sure the fans will somehow blame me, too.)
I was surprised to hear myself having fun because now I sound as tired as I am.
After 100 episodes,I announced my departurefrom that podcast.
Im exhausted from defending myself against a toxic fandom.
Ive often wondered if it felt like a 180 to the franchise when I became its biggest critic.
After all, they had cast me because, on paper, I made sense.
I was a lawyer.
My father was a federal judge.
I had a squeaky-clean record.
I had to be a good Black girl, an exceptional Black girl.
I had to be someone the viewer could accept.
And I was a token until I made sure I wasnt.
It was no different with Bachelor Nation.
And I dont think they ever saw it coming.
When I first went onThe Bacheloras a contestant, I wasnt looking for love.
I was open to it.
But what I wanted was to escape my reality.
I was 31 years old, and I had achieved everything I wanted careerwise.
I was working for a great law firm in Dallas, but I didnt feel fulfilled.
He ended things so nonchalantly: Yeah, I dont think its going to work.
I felt completely insignificant.
I was running around wild every night, looking for someone to see me.
In 2016, two white co-workers came into my office and told me I should do the show.
I had never watched it before.
All I knew about it was that Black people dont go far.
And something about roses.
They said, Rachel, if you do it, youll go far.
I auditioned in June, and I had my final interview in August.
I knew then that they wanted me.
I walked into a one-on-one with a producer who said, Whos your ideal person?
Who would your parents love to see you with?
Barack Obama, I replied.
They were like, You know what?
Lets move you to the next interview.
I walked into another room, and it was a sea of people.
In the front, there were three chairs: two for the executive producers and one for me.
The first thing one of them said was So youre Black.
As you might see, weve had a really hard time casting people like you.
I thought we would have to talk about that later, I replied.
But lets talk about it now.
I dont watch your show because we arent represented.
Its not for us.
What I was saying didnt scare them.
You should tell your job about the show, they said.
They were telling me I was going to be cast.
It was the first time in my life I felt like I was flying.
That I had done something that veered from the straight and narrow.
I accepted without knowing who the Bachelor that season would be.
When they announced that it was Nick Viall, my co-workers said, This is amazing.
Hes interested in people of color.
(But isnt it sad they had to make that disclaimer?)
But I liked Ben.
I liked the way he handled relationships.
He made the women feel appreciated.
I didnt like the cattiness of the women.
I didnt like the way they were treating Jubilee.
Watching it, I started crying.
I thought,I dont like the dates.
My friends are going to laugh at me.
Im not going to have any respect in the legal field.I almost pulled out.
I called the girls who had signed me up and said, I cannot do this.
They said, Rachel, youll be fine.
You signed a contract.
You have to do it.
Days before I went on the show, I called my ex.
I was hoping hed tell me not to go.
He said, Well, dont say my name.
I thought,Oh my gosh, this man wants nothing to do with me.
Youre not who I thought you were.
He was trying to shame me into not doing it.
It was just what I needed to hear to motivate me going in.
One thingThe Bachelorgives you: the ability to cut yourself off from everything.
Your phone, your TV, the internet.
Youre left with your own thoughts and desires.
On the first night, the women exit their cars to greet the Bachelor in front of the mansion.
They did my hair Texas-big.
I had to go back to my room and comb it down.
The producers came by and asked, What dress are you wearing?
I said, I want to wear this green dress.
They encouraged me to wear red.
I asked them if I should have a gimmick.
A producer responded, Im going to be honest with you.
We tell people to do that who we think may not survive the first night.
That evening, I got the first-impression rose, which is awarded to a contestant on night one.
Then he said Rachel.
She said, Girl, no, never.
I started to get paranoid.
I was going around to producers, asking, Who told Nick to give this to me?
Whats going on here?
One of them finally said, Rachel, he gave it to you because he wanted to.
Because I got the rose, I felt seen, I felt heard, I felt liked.
I instantly fell for the fairy tale.
The other contestants were saying, Youre going to at least be top five.
It started to sink in that no Black contestant had ever gone that far.
When I got back to my room, I was in a daze.
I lay on the bed holding the rose and thought,Oh my gosh, this is really happening.
The Bachelorhas masteredthe connection between the in-house producers and the contestants.
Lets go in a room and talk about it.
But you get into a rhythm.
You find your group of friends.
We went on walks.
Then they started having a camera follow us, so we lost that.
But we were trying to find those moments to regain our sanity.
The show tapes for ten weeks.
In the beginning, youre stuck in the mansion.
I always tell people it was the dirtiest place ever.
Think the movieThe Money Pit.
Once you get inside, you see the cracks in the foundation.
Appliances dont work; the backyard is not complete.
(This in addition to 22 women living in three rooms.)
By the time we left, my eyes were puffy.
I had an allergic reaction from the lack of sleep, drinking too much, and feeling dehydrated.
Where did you go?
Is he a good kisser?
What did he say?
There was one group date where we did track and field.
Alexis won the shot put, so she jumped up on Nick and gave him a kiss.
She ran back to us and said, He made my vagina dance.
That was the kind of conversation we would have.
(She never felt that way again.
At some point, I started noticing Black women were going a long way.
We were close, but interestingly, we didnt have conversations about being Black women.
Because we were fucked up the majority of the time.
I got to be 22 again, and I fully was.
We didnt talk about the issues because we were enjoying ourselves so much.
We were just happy to be there, to have the company, to have the friendship.
We werent close this is no secret.
She really liked Nick, and I did too.
But I was able to compartmentalize because I knew wed never get married.
(I call him my favorite ex.)
As a result, she was unable to connect with the other women in the house.
They staged a scene: I was sitting down, pretending to read a book.
Vanessa came over and said, Hey, can I talk to you?
I look back and see how that setup made her look like the bigger person.
The first thing she said to me was I feel like you bullied me in the house.
Immediately, I felt my Blackness was on display.
I knew the audience was going to look at me as an angry Black female.
In true lawyer fashion, I said, Thats an extreme word.
Im going to need specific examples of how I bullied you.
She cited things like how I didnt look her in the eye during a conversation.
Thats not bullying, I said.
That just means Im probably not fucking with you.
Youve ostracized me in the house.
(I thought,No, you did that to yourself.)
I never raised my voice because I was aware of what was going on.
When she started getting emotional, I knew,This is going to be bad.
Shes crying; Im not.
Im going to look cold.We did not come to any jot down of agreement.
When it was over, I stormed out and of course the producers said, Lets talk about that.
Why would you not show emotion?
I lost it in the interview.
Did she call any of the other women a bully?
No, she picked me.
One, because she knew I was a threat Nick liked me the second most.
Two, I felt she was projecting an unconscious bias onto me.
I said, I hope yall show this in its entirety.
An executive producer pulled me to the side and said, This will never air.
There were moments like that when they protected me.
Another time, Id had two mixed drinks, and I was out-of-my-mind wasted.
Astrid was holding my hair back in the bathroom.
(I drunkenly told her, You are my only real friend.)
They could have brought cameras in there.
I sat in the ceremony that day as Nick gave out roses, my head resting on Astrids shoulder.
My hair was disheveled.
I wasnt always like that, but all it takes is one mess-up.
They could have taken those clips and depicted me as a wild Jezebel.
They didnt because I would never come out on top.
At the time, there had been a shift in leadership at ABC.
Channing Dungey, who is a Black woman, had just taken over as president.
At the TV upfronts, she said, There will be a lead of color while Im here.
Im making it my priority.
They didnt say this part, but it couldnt be a man.
So it had to be a Black woman.
To become the Bachelorette,I had to get dumped by Nick.
We were in Finland for our fantasy-suite episode.
I made my producer take me to Victorias Secret.
I had this whole thing about being Mrs. Claus because we were going to Finland.
I had red lingerie.
I bought a mink hat.
The day before had been the 2016 presidential election I stayed up all night and watched Trump win.
I ended up getting drunk on the date because I was so upset.
Meanwhile, the producers were pressuring me to say I love you to Nick.
I liked him, but I was not ready to express it in that way.
I go, That Im falling in love with you.
I threw my hands over my face, and we both started laughing.
I said, Lets get this over with so we can start this fantasy suite.
Nick gave me Tylenol and carried me up the stairs.
I never even made it into the Mrs. Claus outfit.
After that, I was off the show.
Not because I had lost the love of my life.
But when youre in that world for ten weeks, thats your reality.
Theres one man in your life.
The producers are your parents.
The girls are your friends.
And the moment you dont get a rose, the bubble pops.
Your tears are everything you have to let go of and everything you have to go back to.
You just feel very rejected by the franchise, the process, the guy.
We went to a coffee shop in the middle of the capital of Finlands Lapland region.
I thought they were checking on my well-being.
And then they said, What do you think about being the Bachelorette?
My immediate reaction was No.
I didnt want to lose my identity.
I didnt want to be known as a reality-TV star.
I didnt want to lose respect in the workplace.
Then one day back home, I went to church.
Its a big Texas megachurch, and we were all congregated in the lobby after service one Sunday.
My season ofThe Bachelorwasnt out yet, but someone there knew I was on it.
They said, My daughter likes the show.
Im so excited she can see someone who represents her.
And if the rumors are right, you go far.
I started wondering if I was looking at it the wrong way.
Yes, its a silly reality show.
I thought maybe the moment was bigger than me.
The process begins with a round of interviews.
We never do this.
like say yes.I expressed my concerns about being the first Black lead.
I wanted them to come to me if they didnt understand something.
I wanted a diverse season.
I wanted it to be Black in every way.
They deferred to me and asked questions.Was I comfortable with the makeup artist?
How did I want my hair done?I felt like they were listening to me.
So I said yes.
Can a show thats builton stereotypes handle race well?
Its a question that reverberated throughout my season, which was the most diverse one to that point.
I connected with way more of the men than I had anticipated.
I met, and later married, the love of my life, Bryan Abasolo.
When he started speaking Spanish to me on the first night, I was like,Okay.
Weve got some flavor here.We had an immediate banter.
Still, I had expected more diversity.
And I hadnt prepared for how much the casting would prioritize people who might cause drama in the house.
In my case, the drama was largely centered around race.
I didnt want to use the show to tear the Black men down.
But I was constantly put in situations where there was a little bit of that going on.
For one, several of the Black men on my season were not into Black women.
Or if you are, youre the worthy exception.
Story of my life dealing with colorism and being held to a European standard of beauty.
The producers found that narrative fascinating: What do you mean hes not into Black women?
This is not a novel concept, I said.
But to them it was which is how Will Gaskins ended up getting a one-on-one date with me.
They wanted to explore the narrative of a Black man who had barely dated any Black women.
It was the worst date.
He wouldnt hold my hand.
He was so uncomfortable kissing me.
There was music playing in the street, and he didnt want to dance with me.
A producer said, Youre going to have to send him home at the end of the date.
We cant even edit it to make it look like he likes you.
And then there was Lee Garrett.
He instigated fights on the show.
He didnt rile up men who looked like him.
It was only the Black men Kenny, Josiah, DeMario, and Eric.
The show used this person to play into the stereotype of the angry Black man.
It didnt fully dawn on me until later because I didnt know Lee was racist during filming.
You brought him on knowing he was ignorant.
You brought him on to see what could happen.
What they did with me they couldnt have done with another lead.
Youre not going to bring a Black person on who doesnt like white people.
They chose the low-hanging fruit.
It told me everything I needed to know.
Things came to a head during episode four.
There is a big moment where you see me crying.
It was a rose-ceremony night, and I was trying to figure out whom to send home.
I was talking to one contestant, and I could hear Lee and Kenny arguing in the other room.
They didnt want to lose the seasons sheen of diversity.
Thats your fault, I responded, because of how you cast this season.
You didnt give me enough men of color not just Black men, men of color.
I was getting angrier and angrier.
I didnt care that I was miked up.
The fact that we had to ration the Black men was extremely upsetting.
It dawned on me, looking around the room, that I had nobody to talk to.
Nobody was with me.
I loved my producer, Caitlin, whom I had connected with during Nicks season.
But she was white, and there were certain things she was not going to be able to understand.
And I have tobethe Black lead.
I have to educate yall and navigate my system.
It was the first time I had allowed myself to feel that emotion.
And then there was a knock on my door.
I thought,kindly do not bring in Chris Harrison.And who was it?
I looked up, and I said to him, What are you going to do?
He said, Everybodys here to help you.
But the glaring reality was that I was alone.
When I signed up, I knew I was alone.
When I cried in that moment, I knew I was alone.
And when I stopped crying, I knew I was alone.
My tears werent going to conjure up Black producers to help me along this journey.
Those tears were for me.
And then I put my big-girl pants on and got over it.
(That was my defense mechanism, pre-therapy.)
However, its up to the producers to display your happy ending.
I got mine in real life, but the viewers didnt.
There was a time, in the beginning, when I thought it could be him.
Bryan was so charming, but viewers saw him as cheesy.
He was from Miami; he was portrayed as a playboy.
Practically every time he walked in, they played Latino music.
Peter, meanwhile, was the audience favorite.
But if you looked closely, he didnt offer anything other than being a fine physical specimen.
He fit the prototype of a Bachelor Nation contestant.
Because Bachelor Nation applauds mediocrity.
They dont usually like for you to meet the persons friends.
They dont think the contestant takes it as seriously with homeboys or homegirls around.
We planned to meet them at a bar.
I walked in and saw two Black men and two white women sitting at a table.
I turned to my producer and gave her a look.
I couldnt believe it.
I have interracial couples in my family.
Im old enough to understand what Im entering into and the difficulties that come with it.
If anything, that situation turned me off of Peter because I couldnt see myself hanging out with them.
They were nice, but it was so contrived.
The producers really thought,How great!
All these mixed couples can come together.They were only looking at the optics of the situation.
And thats the thing.
We didnt get into the struggles, into how hard it is to raise biracial children.
We didnt have the important conversations.
I said to my producer, Why would yall put me in that situation?
She said, We thought it would be a good story line.
They thought it would make me comfortable.
It shows you how wrong they get it.
They are assuming how we think, rather than actually talking to the person whose real-life experience it is.
There wasnt a lot of drama in the house after Lee, so the narrative shifted to Peter.
In the finale, Peter infamously told me he wasnt ready to propose even though he loved me.
But he was my ex personified giving me enough to stay, never fully committing.
I could tell he didnt know what he wanted in life.
Publicly, I was robbed of my love story.
For theAfter the Rosespecial, I sat on a stage with Chris and Peter while we relitigated our breakup.
I responded onstage by saying I was living my best life.
Somehow, that was twisted into a negative thing.
Chris asked me if I was angry; Peter said he felt attacked by me.
He became the victim in that narrative.
I was sitting there seething.
I knew my reputation was over in that moment.
Theres no denyingThe Bachelorfranchise changed my life.
Its a love-hate relationship.
People ask me, Do you think the show should end?
I would never say that because I know too many people employed by it.
But youre under contract your first year, so you feel pressure to speak about it positively.
Youre riding a high with your relationship and with the show.
Youre getting opportunities you never thought you would.
When it ended, I was still hopeful I was making a difference.
That my role would create opportunities for more leads and better stories for people of color.
If someone asked me who should be the next lead, I would always promote a person of color.
It wasnt until around 2018 that I started to feel uneasy.
I watched the show fall back into old patterns.
She got engaged to a Garrett Yrigoyen, who had a history of liking offensive tweets.
They tiptoed around it and gave him an opportunity to explain.
I thought,Okay, maybe I was the sacrifice, the experiment.
Maybe theyll get it right for the next person of color.So when was that person coming?
On Arie Luyendyks season in 2018, Seinne Fleming was the clear front-runner to be the next Bachelorette.
She was a commercial-real-estate agent, beautiful ostensibly an ideal candidate in their eyes.
They didnt pick her.
He is a veteran, and theres never been a veteran lead.
He has got a million-dollar smile.
He was a fan favorite.
They chose someone with a pubescent haircut: Peter verify You Know Im Half-Latino Weber.
That was my breaking point.
I was like,You know what?
Im going to use my platform to call out the show.
Were trying to do better.
But nothing would happen.
I realized nobody but me was going to say anything.
In May 2020, things grew untenable.
A video of former Bachelorette Hannah Brown saying the N-word surfaced.
I talked to her privately.
I publicly held her accountable.
It became a news story around the time of George Floyds murder.
I started to get depressed watching what was happening to my community.
I couldnt take three steps without crying.
Protesting was the only thing that gave me relief.
That June, I said I would begin to disassociate from the franchise if it didnt make meaningful changes.
Mighty timely of you, I said.
What you really need to do is apologize, I continued.
For 18 years, youve been part of the problem.
They put out a statement acknowledging their role and vowing to do better.
For the first time, I thought,Wow, maybe change is coming.
Instead, the cycle repeated itself.
Watching Matts season felt like reliving my own.
The focus was on his white mother and his popular white friends in the franchise.
This man runs a nonprofit.
Hes close with his family.
But they gave us his whiteness.
The end of the season centered on the absentee-Black-father narrative, yet again playing into a stereotype.
And then came Rachael Kirkconnell.
Youve got a contestant who you know is the winner at this point.
How does that trickle down into how the series is made?
The fish rots at the head, and it was stank after that display.
The fandom had always had a complicated relationship with me.
But it really started to turn against me after that interview.
The franchise has spent 19 years cultivating a toxic audience.
They have constantly given it a product it wants: a midwestern/southern white, blonde, light-eyed Christian.
Not all viewers are like that.
MyHigher Learningco-host and I have divided it 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.
Some fans on social media started trying to dig up dirt on me.
I received death threats and personal attacks.
I had to hire people to protect me.
I couldnt even pretend to want to be involved anymore.
And so I decided to remove myself from it all.
I dont regretbeing the Bachelorette.
Kenny is somebody I really liked.
I hated that he dedicated so much time to fighting with Lee and that this became his narrative.
I wish I had highlighted Josiah.
If I had watched the show before going on, perhaps I would have navigated that differently.
I wasnt thinking about the machinations.
To the franchise, I am no longer a figurehead.
I am no longer a spot-filler.
I am no longer the face of what is diverse.
I used to always say, If you want me to shut up, bring in another Black lead.
Now, I wouldnt come back and talk about something if they paid me.
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