ABC’s The Bachelor fell to its lowest ratings this season and second-lowest of all time Monday night with its “The Women Tell All” episode, as a racial microaggression controversy has booted longtime host Chris Harrison from its upcoming epilogue and forced him on an apology tour.
Monday night’s episode scored just 4.69 million viewers, which is roughly 800,000 fewer viewers than the previous week, according to a report by Showbiz411.
This season of the show features its first-ever black bachelor, Matt James, who apparently took an “apathetic approach” to the contestants and ended up choosing “a white woman who turned out to have a racist past,” according to Showbiz411.
One of the show’s contestants, Rachael Kirkconnell, fell under fire recently over a “racism” controversy, which included attending an “Old South”-themed party in 2018 where she dressed up in an antebellum plantation-style dress and also wearing Native American garb as a costume.
Harrison, the show’s host since 2003, initially defended Kirkconnell but eventually folded, stepping away from his role after intense backlash.
Kirkconnell responded to the scrutiny by taking to social media to tell her fans to “please stop” defending her, adding, “my ignorance was racist.”
“I want and need to use my privilege and my platform, that I so do not deserve, just to shine a light on these issues, and try and do what I can to take a step in the right direction,” she said.
Meanwhile, Harrison has been replaced for the final show by former NFL player Emmanuel Acho, a woke activist and host of the YouTube series “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.
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