Former ‘Bachelorette’ Blasts ‘Racist, Misogynistic’ ‘Bachelor Klan’

In a scathing article, former “Bachelorette” star Rachel Lindsay slammed the franchise for developing a “toxic audience” by fostering white stereotypes. 

“The franchise has spent 19 years cultivating a toxic audience,” Lindsay remarked. “They have constantly given it a product it wants: a midwestern/southern white, blonde, light-eyed Christian.”

She claims that “not all viewers are like that,” just a subset. “There is a Bachelor Nation, and there is a Bachelor Klan.” The distinction, the “Bachelorette” season 13 lead says, is that the Klan is “afraid of change. They are afraid to be uncomfortable. They are afraid when they get called out.”

“Bachelor Klan is hateful, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and homophobic,” she lamented, noting that after her infamous interview with franchise host Chris Harrison, they were the type of fans that forced her to hire protection against the death threats and personal attacks she received.  

After her season, she became a correspondent for “Extra” and regularly recapped “The Bachelor,” so naturally she was the one to ask him questions about Rachael Kirkconnell’s Antebellum-themed party scandal. 

When she asked him about his thoughts, he responded “We all need to have a little grace, a little understanding, a little compassion. Because I have seen some stuff online — again, this ‘judge, jury, executioner’ thing, where people are just tearing this girl’s life apart and diving into, like, her parents, her parents’ voting record,” Harrison said. “The woke police is out there.”

Lindsay said the interview was “like catching him with a hot mic,” and the backlash led Harrison to separate from the franchise with a nearly $10 million settlement.

“If the person who has been representative of your show for nearly two decades thinks this way, what does it say about the rest of it?” she wrote. “How does that trickle down into how the series is made? The fish rots at the head, and it was stank after that display.”

Lindsay has separated from the series as well after the fandom’s threats against her got out of control. “I couldn’t even pretend to want to be involved anymore. I didn’t want to give people a reason to talk about me because everything I was saying was becoming a headline,” she concluded. “And so I decided to remove myself from it all.” 

Marie Finn