'The Bachelorette' Talks About Racism
by EG
The Bachelorette and The Bachelor have made headlines when their castmembers have been part of controversial racially charged incidents, but the current season of The Bachelorette has confronted racism in a different way. Lead Tayshia Adams is a woman of color, and she has talked on the show about her own experience of discovering that racism exists in America. Read on for details.
Three weeks into Tayshia Adams' unprecedented starring turn, ABC's The Bachelorette devoted a significant amount of air time to racial issues.
On Tuesday's episode of the reality dating competition, Adams opened up about how the death of George Floyd and reignited Black Lives Matter movement has changed her perspective as a Black and Latina woman. Adams took over as the Bachelorette mid-season, after original star Clare Crawley's early engagement, and filmed the rest of the 16th cycle this summer, amid the country's racial reckoning and shortly after protests of police brutality against Black people had swept the nation.
Before filming, Adams had attended a Black Lives Matter protest and posted to social media about the profound impact. On Tuesday's episode, while on a date with a contestant who is also biracial, Ivan Hall, Adams broke down in tears when trying to put her feelings into words.
"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 of her California upbringing. "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."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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