Setting the tone. Rachel Lindsay thinks Garrett Yrigoyen‘s “true colors” were on full display when he posted in support of police officers earlier this year.
“I think it’s a sad day when I don’t think people can change. Right? Some people, they never will,” the former Bachelorette, 35, told Us Weekly exclusively while discussing new episodes of MTV’s Ghosted: Love Gone Missing on Friday, August 28. “And you know, it’s like the ‘fool me once shame on you fool me twice, shame on me’ situation. So you’re not going to fool me twice.”
In June, Yrigoyen, 31, made headlines when he shared a lengthy Instagram post about the Thin Blue Line amid widespread demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. Shortly after the incident sparked controversy, Lindsay had a frank discussion with his fiancée, Becca Kufrin, on their “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast.
“As a black woman, it is very important for me to tell you how Garrett’s post made me feel,” Lindsay told her cohost, 30, at the time. “This is not an isolated accident with Garrett’s behavior and I never spoke about what Garrett did during your season. I never spoke about it and it was out of respect for you and your relationship. … To me, this is what Garrett thinks, this is what Garrett is. He posted a black box. He never said ‘Black lives matter.’”
Two years earlier, Yrigoyen was caught up in another scandal after he “liked” memes on Instagram that mocked immigrants, the Parkland shooting survivors, the transgender community and other minority groups. He apologized during the live After the Final Rose special in 2018, saying, “I’m just trying to grow as a person, be a better person on a daily basis.”
“When the situation did happen with Garrett, I really was — I felt a certain way about it, but I purposely didn’t say anything out of respect for Becca,” Lindsay told Us of the 2018 scandal. “But with what’s happened recently, I feel like, ‘OK, now you fooled me,’ because I thought I had been around him. You know, you have conversations with Becca and she would say he’s changed. He’s growing, he’s learning and all. I want to believe that.”
Kufrin initially showed her support for her fiancé in June following the Black Lives Matter backlash but eventually changed her tune. “For those who are curious about my relationship with Garrett at this point, all I can say right now is I don’t know,” she said on her podcast, apologizing to Lindsay for defending Yrigoyen’s mistakes.
“He’s a very nice guy,” Lindsay revealed to Us. “But what I also realize is their relationship hadn’t been tested. And then you have what happened with the pandemic, with Black Lives Matter. And you’re seeing a lot of people’s true colors come out. Some people are recognizing their ignorance and are wanting to change, and some people are wanting, are doubling down and wanting to stay in their ways. Garrett is a person who has doubled down. So to me, no, he’s not willing to change and it honestly kind of shows he never did.”
MTV’s Ghosted: Love Gone Missing, hosted by Lindsay and Travis Mills, returns with virtual episodes on September 2 at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
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