Rachel Lindsay on How Bachelorette Becca Should Handle Garrett's Instagram Scandal If He Wins (Exclusive)
Rachel Lindsay wants answers from Garrett Yrigoyen.
The 29-year-old medical sales rep became a frontrunner on Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorettefrom night one, and he remains one of the final three guys competing for her heart onscreen. Offscreen, he's battled an Instagram scandal after admitting to having liked posts mocking feminists, immigrants and Parkland shooting survivors.
Yrigoyen apologized for his behavior in a statement last month and vowed to be better in the future. Kufrin defended him in an interview with ET -- but Lindsay isn't quite ready to put the issue to bed. While speaking with ET's Lauren Zima on Monday, the former Bachelorette said, "I want to hear more than just an apology. I want to hear an explanation."
With a visible connection to Kufrin, it's possible Yrigoyen could be the last man standing in the upcoming Bachelorette season finale, and if Kufrin and Yrigoyen end up together, Lindsay would like to see the two address the issue head on.
"They have to talk about it. Becca's a liberal and the things he was liking were very conservative, far right, more than conservative [and] a little offensive," she reasoned. "So I think they need to address it now and have a game plan of how they're going to face the media."
"People will read through the BS -- don't try to cover it up and put a Band-Aid on it. just say what you did, why you did it. People will forgive you," she advised, before noting her own social media scandal, where contestant Lee Garrett owning up to past racist tweets.
"[I would handle it] probably the same way I did with Lee. I addressed it, I said, 'If you need a history lesson, I can give you one backstage.' That's how I would deal with it," she recalled of their confrontation at Men Tell All. "I would have to address it head-on and I'd be pretty tough about it."
Lindsay, who is hoping Kufrin ends up with Blake Horstmann instead, said she knows from experience how uncomfortable it could be for Kufrin, who might be watching her season back with another man. The Dallas, Texas, native said she told her final pick -- and fiance -- Bryan Abasolo that she was falling for him on-camera during her season, but it didn't make it to air. Instead, the season focused more on the "drama" of her relationship with her runner-up, Peter Kraus.
"I think it's great they're showing how Becca really feels about Blake," Lindsay said. "When I was watching [the July 9] episode, my initial reaction was Whoa. I hope she picks Blake, because whoever she's sitting at home with is going to have a really hard time hearing all the things she was saying... He said he was in love with her, she said she feels the same way and he doesn't know it. I pray who's on the couch next to her is Blake, because if it isn't, that's tough."
As for her favorites for the next franchise lead, Lindsay isn't necessarily hoping for fan favorite Wills Reid to pull through -- though it would make him the first African American Bachelor.
"I like Wills. I'm maybe not the biggest fan like everyone else is, but I think he's such a gentleman," she expressed, noting her season's ratings might play a role in the producers' choice. "There is a huge difference [in ratings] from JoJo [Fletcher's] season to mine to Becca's, and I don't know if that's because maybe the audience doesn't relate to a diverse lead, but the numbers don't lie. There's something there, there's some kind of disconnect."
The 33-year-old attorney also pointed out that she and Abasolo have fewer social media followers than leads of past seasons and their fiances, but expressed that the response she's gotten from viewers has gotten better over time. "I think a lot of people questioned what Bryan and I had, and through this last year, through time, they've seen that it is real. We connect," she said.
In fact, the two couldn't be closer. They recently took a trip to Spain, where he proposed. "It was so nice to go back there and recreate it and be there without cameras," she shared. "We have so much in common, but we're also so different. There's a really good balance... We just laugh. We're goofy and silly together."
That's one of the reasons the two will make it as a Bachelor success story, in addition to Abasolo's support of her career ambitions. Lindsay recently made an appearance on ESPN, and said fans might be seeing more of her on TV in the future.
"Sports has always been a thing of mine... I love sports, and people don't realize that. I majored in sports and went to law school and focused in sports law, so I always knew I wanted to do ESPN but thought it would be behind the camera," Lindsay revealed. "After doing Bachelor and Bachelorette, the media circuit, I thought, you know what -- I want to talk about it!"
See more from ET's interview with Lindsay in the video below.
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