“The Bachelor” Franchise to Be Sued for Racial Discrimination
Published at
ABC/NICK RAY(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A group of Nashville residents intend to file a class-action lawsuit Wednesday morning against ABC’s The Bachelor franchise for alleged racial discrimination.
The complaint is being led by Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, who are both described as African-American football players. They say that “over 10 years and a combined total of 23 seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, neither show has ever featured a single person of color in the central role of the ‘Bachelor’ or ‘Bachelorette.'”
Both men will appear at a press conference Wednesday in Nashville at 2:30 p.m. local time.
ABC declined to comment on the impending lawsuit.
Last year, Entertainment Weekly asked The Bachelor executive producer Mike Fleiss whether the franchise will ever cast a non-white “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette.”
He replied, “We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio