After being pulled days before premiere, the controversial season could be back
For a few months, Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette looked destined to become lost media.
ABC pulled the season from its schedule just three days before its planned premiere. Following renewed scrutiny over Taylor’s turbulent relationship with fellow The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Dakota Mortensen.
TMZ reports that ABC is once again considering airing the previously shelved season. With behind-the-scenes discussions allegedly pointing to a potential July premiere date.
While nothing has been officially confirmed. The report suggests editors never stopped working on the episodes after the season was pulled.
The network has also reportedly been conducting audience testing to gauge whether viewers are willing to embrace Taylor as the show’s lead despite the controversy surrounding her.
And if recent social media activity is anything to go by, some of the contestants seem to think there’s a good chance audiences will eventually see what happened.
Earlier this month, contestant Johnnie La Rossa posted a video featuring several men from the season dancing together on Instagram.
“Is the show going to air? Us…” he wrote alongside the clip, while the caption simply read: “Just breathe and wait to find out.”
The decision to pull the season came after fresh domestic violence allegations involving Taylor and her on-again, off-again partner Dakota Mortensen.
The charges stemming from a February incident involving Taylor and Mortensen were ultimately dropped. Though, both parties now reportedly have restraining orders against one another.
That development appears to have reopened the door for ABC. Who now faces the awkward reality that it spent months and millions of dollars producing an entire season of television that never aired.
And let’s be honest: reality television has never exactly been known for turning away from controversy.
If anything, controversy tends to be the fuel.
