Now It's Leo - Updated

I'm talking about Bachelorette contestant Leo, aka Leandro Dottavio. After Garrett's controversial Instagram "Likes" came to light, followed by news that Lincoln is now a convicted sex offender, ABC probably thought they were done with the bad news, at least for this season. Nope.

In a strange saga featuring Bekah Martinez from Arie's season, several women have come forward to accuse Leo of inappropriate sexual behavior:

Martinez, 23, took to Instagram Wednesday to post a series of screenshots she collected from her fanbase, all of which claim the 31-year-old Dottavio acted inappropriately toward women.

The screenshots begin with an Instagram post by Dottavio, dating back about four years, saying “you need my big d—k.”

Martinez discovered the screenshot when browsing Bachelor and Bachelorette Reddit pages. She says that the screenshot of the comment has been floating around online since May. Dottavio told The Post that the screenshot of his comment is photoshopped, and was asking his lawyer to look into it. Martinez says she has seen multiple versions of this comment and believes it is real.

After Martinez shared it, many women responded by sharing what they say were their own experiences. (From a story at the New York Post, read it here.) 

Leo and Bekah, along with their respective Instagram followers, have been going at each other since Wednesday, but the story hasn't gotten too much attention in the mainstream media, at least not yet. Jezebel.com did a story, however, and Leo responded with a statement, which doesn't include anything about photoshopping, or about suing Bekah, which she claimed Leo had threatened to do:

“There have been some recent stories about me that have garnered attention and I want to address them. I want to start by saying no one has ever directly accused me of sexual harassment. No one has ever come to me in any way and told me I made them feel uncomfortable. However, I am NOT A PERFECT person nor have I ever claimed to be. Did I do things in college that I would be embarrassed about now? Absolutely. Was I a part of my culture, the times, movies? Yes. I have grown as a person since college. I am not the man I was 2 years ago let alone 14 years ago. It’s important for women to speak out if they felt uncomfortable or harassed. I support that. If there was anyone I made feel uncomfortable why not come to me? I would love an opportunity to right my wrongs and speak to any woman that wants to tell me how and when I made them feel uncomfortable. I want to take this as an opportunity to better myself and the treatment of women in my life.” (Read the Jezebel story here.)

Leo has been booted off The Bachelorette, so no worries there, but as we've seen in previews, he also went to Paradise, which has completed filming but hasn't aired yet. As I said in my post about Garrett, the production team can tweak the editing to minimize Leo's screen time, if they choose to, but they can't change what happened. Like Garrett and Lincoln, Leo now has an asterisk next to his name. 

I feel safe in saying that ABC has to be wishing this would stop happening. They also need to accept that in the age of social media, a superficial background check, based, according to Senior Vice President Of Alternative Series, Specials and Late-Night Programming Robert Mills, on locations where contestants have resided for the last ten years, isn't good enough anymore. If contestants on the show, i.e., Ashley Spivey and Bekah, can find this stuff, whoever is doing the official background checks should be able to too. 

Friday night update: To clarify, Leo's statement wasn't issued directly to Jezebel. He posted it on his Instagram account and it's being reported on by several news/media websites.