The Bachelor’s Rachel Lindsay has made it clear that she has never felt manipulated by the show, following the claims of fellow stars, Jed Wyatt and Dylan Barbour. The reality star who has starred on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette has denied that producers from the franchise have played with her minds and actions.
I never felt manipulated. I never felt like I was being taken advantage of. When I see people say that, I’m almost like, ‘That’s on you, that you felt like you fell for that type of scenario. I don’t know if you’re trying to get attention. I’m not sure if, you know, like, you’re trying to excuse some of the decisions you made, but we are all grown people. You made those decisions for whatever reason it is. Don’t try to now go blame it on somebody else.’” - Rachel Lindsay to Us Weekly
While she made this remark, Rachel also admitted that producers make suggestions at times to create more entertaining scenarios. “But obviously, yeah, they’re making a TV show,” she said. “So I might have to keep someone on as a Bachelorette for (a) two-on-one (date), but they never told me who I needed to pick at the end. They never forced me. They might’ve said, ‘Hey, you might want to take this person on a day because they have an interesting story,’ but I was never swayed in my decision of who I wanted at the end of all of this.”
On January 30, 2021, Dylan Barbour (he appeared on Season 15 of The Bachelorette) claimed that the producers and makers of the show were manipulative, during a Q&A thread on Twitter.
They need you until they don’t. Each person is a pawn in a larger scheme, and they do not have contestants best interests in mind. Mental health is not a concern. Multiple people develop issues post show and they do nothing to help. If anything, they fuel hate.” - Dylan Barbour
After Dylan revealed that Jed Wyatt was “the most screwed over by the production” in Hannah Brown’s season of the show, Jed took to his Instagram story on January 31, to address the claim. Jed further explained that he was “highly manipulated and from it deeply mentally affected from the show.”
However, it wasn't long before Dylan noted that his personal experience with the show was "positive" and backtracked from the comments he made on the now-deleted Twitter thread.
