ABC made an announcement saying they are finally making an African-American woman the star of their reality hook-up show The Bachelorette.
31-year old Rachel Lindsay will be the lead for the new season of The Bachelorette. This will be the first time a Black person period, male or female, will be the lead star for the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. The Bachelor has been on the air since 2002 and The Bachelorette since 2003, combining for 30 seasons.
The announcement comes after years of criticism over the casting for the show. Initially, there were complaints about the pool of contestants not being diverse. Eventually casting for the lead role was also criticized for not having non-White people. Up until now, there had only been one minority lead, Latino Juan Pablo Galavis in Season 18.
Lindsay first appeared as a contestant on the current season The Bachelor, in which she is still in the running to win. She also made “history” on that show by becoming the first African-American woman to receive the “first impression rose,” meaning she was “the bachelors” first choice out of all of the women on the show. Lindsay is a Dallas-based attorney and her father is a federal judge.
Lindsay being picked to be the first Black Bachelorette comes almost exactly a year after ABC made Channing Dungey president of the network. This made Dungey the first-ever African-American woman to lead a national broadcast television network. Addressing The Bachelor‘s diversity problem was one of her concerns. It appears that is on the way to being solved, for now.
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