Garrett Yrigoyen, one of Becca Kufrin‘s Bachelorette contestants, has come under fire after allegedly liking offensive posts on Instagram that mock the trans community, a Parkland high school shooting survivor, undocumented immigrants and more.
The California native’s Instagram has
since been deleted, but screenshots taken by former Bachelor contestant
Ashley Spivey show messages that are claimed to be from as recent as November
2017. (From a post titled Bachelorette's Garrett Yrigyen Under Fire for Allegedly Liking Hateful, Transphobic Memes, read it here. The Huffington Post also has a long story about this, including screen shots of the deleted posts. Read it here.)
As I'm writing on Tuesday evening there has been no comment from show producers, ABC or Yrigoyen himself, although there are plenty of comments on Garrett's new Instagram account (gy_yrigoyen,) and on Becca's (bkoof.)
After the debacle of contestant Lee Garrett on Rachel's season last year, who was found to have a history of racist tweets and stirred up drama on the show, you would think ABC would have done a very deep dive into the social media accounts of all the men they cast on the show, as pointed out by People executive editor Kate Coyne:
I’m forever a @BacheloretteABC / @BachelorABC fan. But HOW HARD IS IT TO THOROUGHLY CHECK SOMEONE’S SOCIAL MEDIA HISTORY before casting? Reporters do it in an hour. Casting racist, bigoted chauvinists is not “good TV.” It’s irresponsible & gross. #dobetter https://t.co/mxUVZHT9YX— Kate Coyne (@KatePeople) May 29, 2018
We won't see this addressed on the show because filming was completed a couple of weeks ago and this stuff didn't bubble to the surface until this past week-end. There's also no way to change the outcome. What happened, happened. ABC can tweak the editing a bit but if Garrett does make it to Hometown Dates, Overnight Dates or the final episode, his entire narrative will be overshadowed by this unsavory revelation. What will ABC do about Garrett? We'll have to wait and see.
Wednesday morning update (and spoiler alert): Garrett is "under fire" this morning, with several big media sites covering the story:
The Hollywood Reporter: 'Bachelorette' Frontrunner Under Fire for Liking Controversial Social Media Posts
Eonline: The Bachelorette's Garrett Yrigoyen Under Fire for Alleged Instagram Activity
TV Guide: The Bachelorette Frontrunner Garrett Yrigoyen Slammed for Ugly Social Media History
Cosmopolitan: This Season of 'The Bachelorette' Already Has Its Problematic Guy (And It's Going To Be a BIG Problem For The Show)
Here's the spoiler: The reason this is such a big deal is that spoiler sites are claiming that Becca is in fact engaged to Garrett. If he was just another contestant who gets eliminated at some point, he could go away relatively quietly and the story would die down. But Becca has been making the media rounds, including Good Morning, America and Live With Kelly and Ryan yesterday, talking about how happy she is to be engaged to her new fiance, and by extension, how wonderful he is. There are also 10 more episodes of the show left to be aired, all of which, unless ABC goes back and re-edits the whole show, will feature Garrett in a "winner" edit intended to show what a great guy he is and building up to the emotional finale when he and Becca get engaged. (And, as stated above, they can tweak the editing but they can't change the outcome.) There's going to be a substantial disconnect between the "isn't he great" narrative that will play out on the show (and again, remember, everything was filmed weeks ago before any of this came out) and the "Garrett Under Fire" narrative now playing out in the real world in real time.
Is Becca engaged to Garrett? Probably. Is she aware of the controversy now surrounding him? Almost certainly, and show producers and the network have to be as well. (If nothing else, the sites listed above are all calling producers and the network for comments.) They would probably like to address the issue publicly but it will be very tricky to do that without revealing/confirming that Garrett is the winner, if in fact he is.
Is Becca having second thoughts about Garrett? No way to know but it's possible. Stay tuned.
Wednesday afternoon, update #2:
Wednesday morning update (and spoiler alert): Garrett is "under fire" this morning, with several big media sites covering the story:
The Hollywood Reporter: 'Bachelorette' Frontrunner Under Fire for Liking Controversial Social Media Posts
Eonline: The Bachelorette's Garrett Yrigoyen Under Fire for Alleged Instagram Activity
TV Guide: The Bachelorette Frontrunner Garrett Yrigoyen Slammed for Ugly Social Media History
Cosmopolitan: This Season of 'The Bachelorette' Already Has Its Problematic Guy (And It's Going To Be a BIG Problem For The Show)
Here's the spoiler: The reason this is such a big deal is that spoiler sites are claiming that Becca is in fact engaged to Garrett. If he was just another contestant who gets eliminated at some point, he could go away relatively quietly and the story would die down. But Becca has been making the media rounds, including Good Morning, America and Live With Kelly and Ryan yesterday, talking about how happy she is to be engaged to her new fiance, and by extension, how wonderful he is. There are also 10 more episodes of the show left to be aired, all of which, unless ABC goes back and re-edits the whole show, will feature Garrett in a "winner" edit intended to show what a great guy he is and building up to the emotional finale when he and Becca get engaged. (And, as stated above, they can tweak the editing but they can't change the outcome.) There's going to be a substantial disconnect between the "isn't he great" narrative that will play out on the show (and again, remember, everything was filmed weeks ago before any of this came out) and the "Garrett Under Fire" narrative now playing out in the real world in real time.
Is Becca engaged to Garrett? Probably. Is she aware of the controversy now surrounding him? Almost certainly, and show producers and the network have to be as well. (If nothing else, the sites listed above are all calling producers and the network for comments.) They would probably like to address the issue publicly but it will be very tricky to do that without revealing/confirming that Garrett is the winner, if in fact he is.
Is Becca having second thoughts about Garrett? No way to know but it's possible. Stay tuned.
Wednesday afternoon, update #2:
I reached out to ABC, which airs "The Bachelorette," and Warner Bros., which produces the show, to see if either had a response to Garrett allegedly liking sexist, transphobic and anti-immigrant memes. Both said they will not be commenting.— Amy Kaufman (@AmyKinLA) May 30, 2018
Amy is a Hollywood/entertainment reporter for the LA Times; apparently neither the producers nor the network will comment about Garrett. Becca was asked about it in a couple of interviews yesterday and today but her answers were bland and scripted. She has to be careful. She didn't know about this during filming because it hadn't happened yet; if she acknowledges that she's in contact with Garrett now she (may possibly) be giving away the ending. However she feels about Garrett at this moment, she can't be happy that her season has been hijacked by this controversy.
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