The Bachelor alum Rachel Lindsay calls out franchise’s ‘embarrassing’ lack of leads of colour

‘When I look at what’s happening in our country, and then I look at the franchise, I can’t continue to be affiliated’

Rachel Lindsay has called out The Bachelor franchise’s lack of diversity – specifically when it comes to casting leads of colour.

The attorney became the franchise’s first, and so far only, black Bachelorette in 2017. There has never been a black Bachelor.

“We have now casted for 40 seasons — even though they haven’t started [new Bachelorette Clare Crawley’s],” Lindsay told Page Six.

“There’s been one person of colour in 40 seasons. We have 45 presidents. There has been one person of colour.

“We are literally on par to saying that you are more likely to become the president of the United States than you are to be the lead of this franchise. That is insane.”

Lindsay said she feels all the more compelled to speak out as anti-racism protests multiply across the US in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

“When I look at what’s happening in our country, and then I look at the franchise, I can’t continue to be affiliated — it’s embarrassing honestly at this point — to be affiliated with a franchise who is not on the right side of this,” she told the publication.

Both Lindsay and her husband Bryan Abasolo, whom she met on The Bachelorette, recently joined a demonstration in Miami, Florida, protesting Floyd’s death.

“I told Bryan, ‘Listen, we’re in an interracial relationship and our children are going to be biracial,” she said.

“We don’t know what they’ll look like, but at the end of the day, they’re going to be seen as black. And so, the issues that are happening right now can directly affect our children because they will be black.”