‘The Bachelor’: Sean Lowe Wants the Franchise to Cast More Black Men to Get a Black Bachelor
Fans were able to revisit multiple seasons of The Bachelor with a new special, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever! One of the couples that are still together is Catherine and Sean Lowe. Sean revealed how he wants the franchise to fix its lack of diversity.
Rachel Lindsay talked about lack of diversity in ‘The Bachelor’
Rachel Lindsay is still the only Black person to star in a season for the franchise. In 2017, she starred in The Bachelorette and has stayed with the franchise by co-hosting the podcast Bachelor Happy Hour.
She recently spoke about the lack of diversity in the shows. “We have now casted for 40 seasons — even though they haven’t started Clare [Crawley’s],” Lindsay told Page Six. “There’s been one person of color in 40 seasons. We have 45 presidents. There has been one person of color. We are literally on par to saying that you are more likely to become the president of the United States than you are to be the lead of this franchise. That is insane.”
The former reality star said she reflected on her part in the situation. “I feel like I’ve been a little bit a part of the problem,” she said. “We continue to make excuses as to why we haven’t seen this change. You continue to say, ‘Oh, well it’s just because the lead hasn’t picked a person of color that’s gone far enough. Oh, this person was more qualified for this person. Oh, the audience liked this person more.’ But that’s not true.”
After her comments, another former star was asked to chime in on the state of the franchise. Lowe gave his opinion on how it can be corrected.
Sean Lowe wants more Black men to be cast
Lowe was asked to share his thoughts on the franchise’s lack of diversity. “I would say I want to see a Black Bachelor,” Lowe told Entertainment Tonight. “But I think you would be doing that person an injustice if you just cast him as the lead for the simple fact that you want a Black Bachelor.”
His solution is that it all starts with the casting of contestants. “What they need to do is start casting more Black men in The Bachelorette, because… [the team] picks a good bachelor based on their merits, based on the fan reaction and so forth, and it won’t be that difficult if you just continue casting Black men,” he said. “But unfortunately, season after season, there only seems to be one or two, maybe three [Black men] cast in a group of 25.”
The franchise had a few opportunities to pick a Black man before. Many fans wanted Mike Johnson from Hannah Brown’s season to be the star. Peter Weber was picked instead.
Johnson talked about being considered for the role on Bachelor Happy Hour With Rachel & Ali. “Yes, I wanted to be the bachelor. Yes, I auditioned to be the bachelor. I went in there with the right intentions of wanting to find love, wanting to be true to myself. You might have seen durag king come back. I had a list, a word document, of the type of women I wanted, what I was scared of, what I wasn’t scared of,” he said.
Fans still didn’t forget about Johnson by the end of Weber’s season. Time will tell if the franchise will change after multiple stars have spoken out.
