Andi Dorfman Slams 'Bachelor' Producers After Rachel Lindsay Harassment

Andi Dorfman called out 'The Bachelor' franchise for not stepping up to defend Rachel Lindsay sooner amid online harassment — more details

Andi Dorfman had some choice words for The Bachelor producers after Rachel Lindsay deactivated her Instagram account amid bullying for her interview with Chris Harrison.

The former Bachelorette, 33, addressed the controversy in an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Friday, March 5, revealing that she thinks Bachelor Nation “dropped the ball.”

Dorfman told the outlet, “I don’t know how you let somebody like Rachel Lindsay get bullied off her own social media account without stepping in and saying things earlier. I don’t know how you kind of hide behind all of that. [When] your cast and your contestants are the ones that are having to come together without you, where is the franchise in all of this?”

Andi Dorfman Slams ‘Bachelor’ Producers for Not Defending Rachel Lindsay Sooner: 'I Think They're Scared' — Andi Dorfman and Rachel Lindsay. Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

The Georgia native added, “I think they’re scared. I think the franchise is scared.”

Lindsay, 35, quit Instagram on February 26, weeks after her Extra interview with the Bachelor Nation host, in which he defended Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell‘s past racist actions. She explained her decision to step away from the account during an episode of her “Higher Learning” podcast with Van Lathan on Tuesday, March 2.

“I saw something negative and I said, ‘You know what? Not today, not even this weekend,’ and currently still not now because I’m still disabled. It was the best decision that I could do for myself to detach from that negativity,” she said. “I needed that. I feel so much better. I’m not 100 percent, but I feel lighter.”

She resurfaced on the platform on Saturday, March 6, with a photo of a bouquet of sunflowers and an uplifting caption.

“‘I want to be like a sunflower so that even on the darkest days I will stand tall and find the sunlight,'” Lindsay wrote.

Harrison, for his part, apologized during a Thursday, March 4, appearance on Good Morning America. He also addressed the harassment Lindsay has faced after calling him out, asking fans to stop “throwing hate” her way.

“I am an imperfect man, I made a mistake and I own that,” he said during the interview. “I believe that mistake doesn’t reflect who I am or what I stand for. I am committed to progress, not just for myself, also for the franchise. And this is a franchise that has been a part of my life for the better part of 20 years and I love it.”

Harrison previously apologized for asking fans to have “grace” toward Kirkconnell after she “liked” pics with the confederate flag in the background and attended an antebellum-themed party at a former plantation in 2018. “I am saddened and shocked at how insensitive I was in that interview with Rachel Lindsay,” he said on GMA. “I can’t believe I didn’t speak against antebellum parties, what they stand for. I didn’t say it then and I want to say it now: those parties are not OK, past, present, future. And I didn’t speak from my heart. And that is to say that I stand against all forms of racism, and I am deeply sorry to Rachel Lindsay and to the Black community.”

The Texas native has been working with author and educator Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, who came to Harrison’s defense during an interview with Entertainment Tonight this week. The Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America author said the Bachelor Nation host, who announced last month that he was temporarily stepping back from the franchise, has been putting in the work and deserves a second chance.

“I think as a host, it’s extremely important for him to have been through this and to be even more deeply sensitized to the issues of race, to the issues of conflict, with history and the present, and how the franchise can embody some of the best ideals and the norms that he has now taken to,” Dyson told ET. “The perspectives that he now has — and I think he will be all the better for it — and I think quite frankly, the show will be all the better for it as well.”