Months after Rachel Lindsay, the first black “Bachelorette,” said the franchise needed more diversity, the latest episode, which stars Tayshia Adams, dove heavily into racial issues.
Adams opened up about her experience as a half-black, half-Latina growing up in Orange County to another biracial contestant by revealing that she attended Black Lives Matter protests throughout the summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Being in Orange County and surrounded by a lot of people that don’t look like me — being the only person that looks like me — I’m realizing that I’ve been trying so hard my whole life to blend in because I knew I was different,” said Adams on the show. “I didn’t really want to cry about it or open up about it, but hearing people yell ‘Black Lives Matter,’ it hit me more than I realize just because those are people in my backyard that I’ve been trying to prove for so long that I’m the same as them.”
Adams confessed this to contestant Ivan Hall, who related to her professed pain by recalling how his younger brother was mistreated in prison at the hands of correctional officers.
“It’s opened my eyes in the sense of, ‘What the hell are you doing? Wake up,'” Adams told Ivan. “Having different, beautiful relationships with people that I probably wouldn’t have [before], is amazing to me.”
Adams later told the camera that Ivan “understands me more than anybody else can. That’s obviously what I’ve been looking for.”
Earlier in the season, Adams told The Hollywood Reporter that she looked forward to giving a platform to women that looked like her.
“Not only am I African American, but I am Mexican, and I’m going to have an opportunity to have a platform to relate to so many women who look like me, who haven’t had the opportunity to relate to someone in the past,” she said. “How can you not want to take that opportunity and be an amazing role model for people? That was something that I took on and was really excited to be able to do.”
As the Black Lives Matter protests erupted nationwide in early June, Rachel Lindsay called on the show to promote more diversity.
“In 40 seasons, [‘The Bachelor’] had one black lead,” Lindsay said. “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.”
If the franchise does not change course, Lindsay said that she is prepared to step away from it entirely. Just recently, she appeared as a judge on the “Bachelor” spin-off show “Listen to Your Heart.”
“It’s been asked of me: ‘Will I continue in this franchise if it continues in this way?’” Lindsay said. “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.”