Nick Viall Explains Why Rachel’s ‘Bachelorette’ Won’t Be on ‘Bachelor: Greatest Seasons—Ever’
The Bachelor franchise has gone through a real wakeup call in recent weeks, to say the least.
Former Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay called out the show’s lack of diversity, thousands of fans signed a petition demanding the show hire more people of color for both in front of and behind the camera, Matt James was named the first Black star of The Bachelor, and producers apologized for their part in the issue and promised to take real action to remedy the situation. So it looks like some actual change is starting to be made.
And yet with all of this progress, Rachel’s season of The Bachelorette didn’t make the cut to air on ABC’s current retrospective series, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!. One would think producers would consider re-airing the only season starring a Black lead (before Matt James), especially right now.
But it turns out there’s a good reason why it’s not on the lineup — at least, according to former Bachelor star Nick Viall.
The 39-year-old revealed on his Viall Files podcast this week that the groundbreaking season’s omission is largely due to a licensing issue. “Logistically, and I don’t know why The Bachelor doesn’t say just this, but they don’t have the licensing to have Rachel’s season be a part of the lineup, which is also why you’re not seeing [Bachelorette Season 8 star] Emily Maynard’s season,” he explained.
“Clearly that would be easily in one of the greatest of all time, and they’re not airing that. And it’s a licensing issue. That’s what I’ve heard from multiple reliable sources. It could potentially might not be true, but I’m pretty sure it is.”
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He continued, “I’ve heard that floated around. So they don’t even have the ability to do that. That being said, even if [they did include] Rachel’s season, it still highlights how white it has been. The optics just don’t look great.”
The first two episodes of the season covered Sean Lowe’s season of The Bachelor and Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season of The Bachelorette, with Ben Higgins’, JoJo Fletcher’s, and more to come.
The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!, Mondays, 8/7c, ABC
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