Rachel Lindsay is opening up about her decision to deactivate her Instagram account.
As fans of The Bachelor franchise may know, the 35-year-old reality star disabled her platform last week amid the ongoing racism controversy within the series. The decision came after host Chris Harrison defended Rachael Kirkconnell for previous racist behaviors during an interview with Lindsay for Extra. Afterward, Harrison and Kirkconnell issued an apology to their respective IG accounts. The longtime host also announced he would temporarily be stepping down from his position in the ABC reality series. The Texan has since been replaced by Emmanuel Acho for the upcoming After the Final Rose special.
Since then, the former Bachelorette had received a ton of hate and harassment from Bachelor Nation fans, who wrongfully believed Lindsay overreacted to the situation. The TV personality ultimately chose to quit the social media platform, explaining on the most recent episode of the High Learning podcast that:
“I woke up, looked at my phone and I saw something negative and I said, ‘Not today. Not even this weekend and currently not now. It was the best decision I could do for myself to detach from that negativity. I needed that. I feel so much better. I’m not 100 percent, but I feel lighter.”
We’re glad, girl!
She went on to thank her podcast co-host Van Lathan for speaking out about the backlash. In case you missed it, the 40-year-old reporter posted a video on Instagram to condemn the harassment from Harrison’s fans. During the episode, though, Lindsay took the time to explain the type of hurtful messages that were constantly flooding her DMs.
“What’s the purpose behind it all? What are you trying to accomplish in the things that you’re doing? You’re doing the things that you think I’m doing. People are attacking me because they think that I’m trying to cancel someone, so they’re on a mission to cancel me. I’m getting threatened. People are threatening, like, ‘Oh I have this on you. I have this, I’m just waiting till you get back on social to unleash this kind of stuff.’”
She continued, questioning:
“You’re affecting people’s well-being. Where does it end? Where does it stop? Until you take everybody down? That can’t be it. No one’s listening anymore to what people are saying. They’re just so quick to jump on things and to tear people down. And for what? What do you do? Do you just cancel everything and start over?”
On Monday, the executive producers released a statement to address the hate Lindsay received before she deactivated her account. That statement read:
“As Executive Producers of The Bachelor Franchise, we would like to make it perfectly clear that any harassment directed towards Rachel Lindsay in the aftermath of her interview with Chris Harrison is completely unacceptable. Rachel has received an unimaginable amount of hate and has been subjected to severe online bullying, which, more often than not, has been rooted in racism. That is totally unacceptable. Rachel has been an incredible advocate for our cast, and we are grateful that she has worked tirelessly towards racial equality and inclusion.”
However, the Bach alum noted on the podcast that the show has not publicly addressed the controversy at all. While the podcast episode was recorded before the producer’s message, the show has yet to actually call out the show’s continuous problematic behavior. The only thing they’ve done to semi-address it (not really) is to offer an extremely lame and passive “Previously recorded on February 4, 2021” message next to Harrison’s face on the Women Tell All special.
“Everyone who’s been at issue has issued an apology except for the franchise, except for the network, except for the production company. You need to hear something from them… They need to come out and say something. They need to grab ahold of this and control the situation because right now, you’re letting your fans speak for you.”
Nothing but the truth!! She continued:
“This is an audience that you have curated for 15 years until you have the first lead of color: Me. You have built this. These people feel that they had their world and now people of color are trying to mess it up. You did this. So you need to speak out and you need to say something. You need to undo it. And, at the moment, they’re silent.”
The leading lady, who decided not to join Becca Kufrin on their podcast Bachelor Happy Hour on Tuesday, believed the show needed to take a break before filming the next season of The Bachelorette.
“You’re going to go into another season, but you still have all these issues. How have you fixed them coming into a new season? You really haven’t. So I think they need to take a beat, figure things out, regroup, and then bring the product back to us in a way where we can all enjoy it like we used to.”
Oh man, we don’t want to imagine how much anger would erupt from the viewers at home if the show were to take a long break, again. We’re pretty sure wine would be tossed left and right across the country!
Well, what do U think, Perezcious readers? Do U think the producers should take a break from the show? Let us know in the comments (below)! Also, you can listen to the episode of Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathan’s Higher Learning podcast (HERE).
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