'Bachelor' Producers Go Silent When Confronted With Racial Issues

[Mark Jeffries]

At an ABC unscripted panel during the Television Critics Association's winter sessions in LA, NPR's Eric Deggans asked the showrunners why the long-running dating show seems to always have problems whenever the Bachelor(ette) happens to be Black (like the year that host Chris Harrison was forced to step down as host after saying on social media that he found nothing wrong about one of the white contestants courting Black bachelor Matt James attending a plantation-style sorority party)--when answered by one producer with platitudes about diversity, Deggans reasked the question and you could hear the crickets in the ballroom:

https://www.thewrap.com/the-bachelor-producers-race-sag-aftra-tca-2024/