Just Cancel 'The Bachelor' Franchise Already

The long-running series has been riddled with mess for years. ABC, it’s time to let it go.

In a teaser at the end of the premiere episode of “The Bachelorette” Season 22 — the sole screener ABC provided media outlets to watch before the series was yanked Thursday — Taylor Frankie Paul tells one of her 22 suitors about a domestic violence incident she was involved in years prior.

“I was very lost in every aspect, and I came home mad one night and we got in a fight. I’ve never drank since that night. I got my act together. I got in major therapy, and I’ve been in that ever since. I cleaned up my life,” she tearfully says.

Her past came back to haunt her days before the season was set to start.

Season 22 seemed to be an intentional refresh for “The Bachelorette”: The network had paused production after its 21st season aired in 2024. That season featured Jenn Tran as the franchise’s first Asian American lead. Tran proposed to Devin Strader, but the relationship had ended by the time the finale aired. The ratings for the season had started out promising but plummeted by its finale — it was competing with the Olympics — notching the lowest ratings in the 18-49 demographic in franchise history, according to Bachelor Data, an account devoted to statistics for “The Bachelor” and its spinoffs.

So when the franchise tapped Paul, it seemed like the network was making a last-ditch effort to pump some new life into the series. Paul is one of the founders of MomTok, a group of Mormon influencer moms in Utah who’d gone viral for their dancing TikToks — and for a swinging scandal. Their lives are chronicled in Hulu’s hit series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”