ABC pulls ‘Bachelorette’ over star’s assault video

What happened

ABC on Thursday canceled its ready-to-broadcast 22nd season of “The Bachelorette,” hours after TMZ posted a leaked video of this season’s star, Taylor Frankie Paul, attacking the father of one of her three children in 2023. The season premiere had been scheduled for this Sunday. Paul, a breakout star of the Hulu series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” is facing a separate domestic assault investigation involving the same former partner, Dakota Mortensen, police in Draper City, Utah, said earlier this week.

Who said what

The new police investigation also prompted Hulu — which, like ABC, is owned by Disney — to pause production of the fifth season of “Secret Lives.” ABC “had appeared to be committed to continuing its plans” to air “The Bachelorette,” The New York Times said. But the video of Paul kicking, hitting and throwing metal chairs at Mortensen in front of her 5-year-old daughter “rapidly shifted” the “calculus” for Disney, trumping the “significant financial hit” the company will take for pulling the season.

“The Bachelor” and its offshoots “are no stranger to controversy,” The Washington Post said, but this is the “first time an entire season of the show was canceled before it aired.” ABC had “heavily promoted” the show, “hyping the ‘Secret Lives’ tie-in” and counting on Paul’s 6 million TikTok followers to boost viewership. Unfortunately for the network, its “bet big on a Paul-fronted season” to reverse plummeting “ratings and cultural relevance” was “over before it started,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

ABC will “not move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time” in light of the “newly released video,” said a Disney spokesperson. It was “not immediately clear whether Paul’s ‘Bachelorette’ season would air at a later date,” the Journal said.