Where’s My Gay ‘Bachelor’? Where’s My Gay ‘Bachelor’?
The New York Times
It is an idea whose time has come, even if it probably won’t happen any time soon. But a gay man can dream, can’t he?
When the new season of ABC’s “The Bachelor” starts on Monday, the leading heartthrob-heartbreaker will be Grant Ellis, a 31-year-old day trader from Newark.
Ellis didn’t make much of an impression as one of the contestants who came up short in the most recent edition of “The Bachelorette,” which made headlines last year when Jenn Tran became the show’s first Asian American lead.
But a man who doesn’t make waves is the ideal “Bachelor” bachelor. In a recent promotional trailer for the coming season, the drama didn’t come from anything Ellis did but rather from the predictably skinny female contestants in predictably beaded gowns who cried, predictably.
Ellis will most likely stick to his invisible script and be a stand-up guy looking for a wife “who shares his values of loyalty, humor and a deep appreciation for life’s simple pleasures,” as his cliché-buffet bio states. To put it in Bachelor Nation terms: Grant Ellis is no Juan Pablo Galavis.
Ellis will also be straight — non-negotiably, necessarily straight. So has every other lead on “The Bachelor” and its spinoffs and specials, including “Bachelor Pad,” “Bachelor in Paradise” and the recent “Golden Bachelor.” The sole known exception is Colton Underwood, who came out on “Good Morning America” in 2021 after his season aired, a decision that made him either a hero or a villain, depending on the “Bachelor” nerd you ask.
As a longtime “Bachelor” watcher and lifetime gay, I really want a gay season of “The Bachelor.” (“The Bachelorette,” too, but here I’m sticking with what I know best: gay men.) I first started watching “The Bachelor” 15 years ago, when Jake Pavelka proposed to Vienna Girardi. Since then, I’ve waited in vain for ABC to tear down its walls — or to be vulnerable, to use another “Bachelor” banality — and let two men slow dance in an empty theater to a country singer I’ve never heard of.
