Former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay doesn’t think the Bachelor franchise can survive Taylor Frankie Paul’s domestic violence controversy.
During a Thursday taping of the Bachelor Party podcast, the former franchise lead learned of ABC’s decision to pull The Bachelorette season 22 after a video leaked of Paul, depicting the events that led to her 2023 arrest.
Lindsay cut her two co-hosts off to share the news, admitting she had “chills.” She also explained that she thought the season was “over” after the video was released.
“I think it’s over. I was trying to think of a scenario where it could be different. Because this isn’t just, ‘Oh, we put it all on a person. This person did this.’ This is the system that allowed this to happen,” she said. “The name Bachelorette, Bachelor is tainted at this point. How do you move forward past that? You can’t.”
ABC yanked Paul’s Bachelorette season on Thursday after a 2023 video of Paul engaging in a domestic dispute with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Dakota Mortensen was posted by TMZ. “In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson said in a statement.
Before the TMZ video, it was confirmed Monday that production on season five of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was paused amid a separate domestic incident involving Paul and Mortensen. A spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department told People there is an open “domestic assault investigation” between Paul and Mortensen. They added that “allegations have been made in both directions” and “contact was made with involved parties on [Feb.] 24th and 25th.”
As of Friday, filming on season five of Mormon Wives is still paused until production’s investigation into the February incident between Paul and Mortensen, which is separate from the law enforcement investigation, concludes, which is expected to be by the end of next week, a source close to the situation told The Hollywood Reporter.
The Bachelorette season 13 star noted that there was prior backlash to Paul being named the next franchise lead, and that while “there was excitement, there was going to be a new audience, the traditional Bachelor viewers were already upset by this decision.” Lindsay pointed out that that hesitancy, combined with the ongoing controversy, may lead viewers to lose trust in the franchise as a whole.
“So how do you trust this name — Bachelor, Bachelorette — that has meant something to people, moving forward? You don’t,” Lindsay explained. “You already questioned it when you moved Taylor Frankie Paul over [from Mormon Wives.] Now it is completely destroyed. Like, why did you guys think this was okay? That’s the question that needs to be answered. We’re never gonna get that from Taylor at this point.”
“There’s no way under any brand, but particularly Disney, that you can proceed when this video comes out,” she explained earlier in the podcast, adding that she was originally keen on Paul’s casting. “It makes me go back to, there was a lot of outrage when she was cast, and I have to get onto myself for this. When she was cast, I was invigorated by it.”
“We know that the typical Bachelorette, and I’m assuming they did this for her, goes through an STD background test, a psychological test and a criminal background test,” Lindsay added. “This is where I say I take blame. If you had asked me prior to this to explain, even though we saw episode one of season one that this domestic violence dispute happened, we didn’t see what we saw today that was released by TMZ, but we knew it happened. I didn’t do more research.”
On Friday, an NBC News report revealed that Paul’s Mormon Wives co-stars had a 30-minute Zoom call with three Disney executives including Rob Mills, executive vp unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, on March 7. There, they voiced concern about the alleged incident that took place in February between Paul and Mortensen.
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