Inside The “Toxic” Culture Of ‘The Bachelor’ Franchise As Crew Deals With Fallout Of ‘Bachelorette’ Pause; Extent Of EP Exits Revealed

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Jenn Tran, star of the last season of The Bachelorette, was in tears, her mother sitting yards away, as she watched footage of her proposing to Devin Strader on ABC’s After The Final Rose live finale.

The engagement hadn’t worked out and was over before Tran was forced to relive that day alongside Strader. It was a decision that former Bachelor star Ben Higgins called “cruel and unnecessary.” “Do I have a choice?,” Tran asked host Jesse Palmer as he teed up the footage.

It seems she didn’t. The decision to air the footage was made by Claire Freeland, who serves as showrunner and executive producer of The Bachelor franchise alongside Bennett Graebner. “Claire made that decision to put her in that position and air that proposal on live television,” one former producer said. “Producers were screaming at them in the booth to stop and were ignored.

They said she was falling apart. “You know why [Freeland] did it? Because it was her idea,” the producer said. Warner Bros.