{"id":536173,"date":"2026-03-21T06:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/536173\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:03:08","slug":"rachel-lindsay-says-bachelor-franchise-is-over-after-taylor-frankie-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/536173\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Lindsay Says ‘Bachelor’ Franchise Is Over After Taylor Frankie Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBachelor Nation is speaking out in the wake of ABC pulling \u201cThe Bachelorette<\/a>\u201d from the schedule. On Thursday, ABC announced the decision not to air the season, hours after a video of a 2023 domestic dispute between their lead, Taylor Frankie Paul<\/a> and her ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, leaked online. <\/p>\n

\n\tFormer \u201cBachelorette\u201d lead Rachel Lindsay<\/a> was caught off guard when the news broke while she was recording the \u201cBachelor Party\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n

\n\tLindsay, who competed on Season 21 of \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d before becoming the lead of Season 13 of \u201cThe Bachelorette,\u201d was set to record an episode of the Spotify podcast about the new season. About three minutes in, the announcement came through that the show had been canceled<\/a>. She was visibly shocked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s over. I was trying to think of a scenario where it could be different. Because this isn\u2019t just, \u2018Oh, we put it all on a person. This person did this.\u2019 This is the system that allowed this to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cThe name \u2018Bachelorette,\u2019 \u2018Bachelor\u2019 is tainted at this point. How do you move forward past that? You can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe then asked, \u201cHow do you trust this name, \u2018Bachelor,\u2019 \u2018Bachelorette,\u2019 that has meant something to people, moving forward? You don\u2019t. You already questioned it when you moved Taylor Frankie Paul over [from \u2018The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives\u2019]. Now it is completely destroyed. Like, why did you guys think this was okay? That\u2019s the question that needs to be answered. We\u2019re never gonna get that from Taylor at this point. I could make an argument \u2018Secret Lives\u2019 could be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore their son was born, Paul was arrested for allegedly hitting, choking and throwing chairs at Mortensen, and pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault. Her arrest delayed the filming between the first and second episodes of \u201cMormon Wives.\u201d While the police report was public and Taylor was on probation, video of the incident was never released publicly until Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think you also have to acknowledge that so many people are about to lose their jobs, and that\u2019s the irresponsible part too, with the network,\u201d Lindsay said. \u201cIn an industry right now where it is slim pickings when it comes to new shows and people even leaving the positions that they have, the jobs \u2026 do not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe continued, \u201cWe just have to acknowledge \u2014 whoever decided to look past these issues or a video or a background [check], and know that this could possibly come out <\/a>and be detrimental to the franchise, whether it was one person, multiple people \u2014 now, it\u2019s a bigger loss. It\u2019s not just that you don\u2019t get your season [to] air. It\u2019s that people are going to be unemployed\u2026 Somebody\u2019s going to have to take the blame for not vetting this out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThree days before \u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d was pulled, \u201cThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wives\u201d paused filming of Season 5 due to new allegations of domestic violence from both Paul and Mortensen.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the cancellation was announced, Paul\u2019s rep released a statement<\/a>, saying, \u201cTaylor is very grateful for ABC\u2019s support as she prioritizes her family\u2019s safety and security. After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation, Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bachelor Nation is speaking out in the wake of ABC pulling \u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d from the schedule. On Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,240436,90715,64613,92],"class_list":["post-536173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-rachel-lindsay","tag-taylor-frankie-paul","tag-the-bachelorette","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}