Next ‘Bachelorette’ Probably Won’t Be White, ABC Chief Says

TCA 2016: “I’d be very surprised if [the bachelorette] in the summer isn’t diverse,” ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee says

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The next star of “The Bachelorette” will likely not be white, according to ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee.

“I’d be very surprised if [the bachelorette] in the summer isn’t diverse,” Lee said Saturday following a Television Critics Association panel. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I think that’s likely to happen.”

Lee responded to a question as to why “The Bachelor,” the show from which “The Bachelorette” was spun off, has never had a black bachelor at its center.

“We had a Latino bachelor, obviously,” Lee said, referring to season 18 star Juan Pablo Galavis. “We’re doing a whole lot of tweaks. Because we have the farm team, right, which allows us to then pick the next one.”

“The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” have tended to feed each other, with candidates who appeared on one show later being tapped to star on the other.

Season 20 of “The Bachelor” premiered Jan. 4. The lack of a black star in the show’s history has long been a source of controversy.

“UnReal” creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who used to work on “The Bachelor,” was asked earlier this week at TCA press tour about the ABC show’s lack of diversity.

“I worked in my day jobs have included reality TV, advertising and fashion,” Shapiro said. “And I’ve heard in those day jobs really, really appalling things about race all the time. And the way they’re uttered, they come out of producers’ and executives’ mouths, mine included I mean, sometimes it’s just incredibly pragmatic decisions, like, ‘We will isolate this demographic. There’s no way we can do it.’”

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