While ABC continues to stress to fans that The Bachelor franchise remains a top priority for them, it’s clear the franchise is not exactly in the best of places.
For the last two decades, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have been mainstays on ABC’s schedule. Since its premiere in 2002, The Bachelor has aired a new season every year, while The Bachelorette has aired a new season consistently since 2008. Fans have always been able to count on getting a new season annually, but for the first time in over a decade, that’s no longer the case.
ABC has already confirmed we’ll be getting no new season of The Bachelorette in 2025, and there have been no announcements regarding a new season of The Bachelor for early 2026. This comes on the heels of Bachelor in Paradise taking a year off in 2024, before finally returning in 2025 with a slew of changes to the show’s formatting. Needless to say, the franchise seems to be in shambles, and fans have decided to point the finger towards the franchise’s two most recent leads, Grant Ellis and Jenn Tran.
It’s a harmful narrative that some fans have been trying to spin up and it’s one that Ellis is not having.
“I think that everything has a beginning and everything has an end and I’m not saying that this is the end. I just think that especially with leads that are of a different ethnicity, it is a little bit partial judgment, which is fine. But at the end of the day, Jenn was a success story. She found happiness. I’m a success story. I found my fiancé. So in my book, we’re winning. Whatever people have to say, they’re always going to talk. So just lead with love. That’s what me and Jules do really well. So whatever people say, they don’t really know like that,” Ellis told Us in an exclusive interview.
Ellis’s statement comes on the heels of The Bachelorette star Jenn Tran’s recent viral video in which she responded to fan backlash over her and Ellis being the reason The Bachelor franchise is in shambles. In the video, Tran made it clear she’s not here for that narrative.
“I was actually such an amazing Bachelorette and my relationship ended in such success that they can simply never find anyone to replace me because my season will be forever ingrained in your little brains and you’re never going to get out of your heads,” Tran replied in the video.
Honestly, we’re fully in support of both Ellis and Tran and are disappointed in Bachelor Nation fans trying to place the blame for the franchise’s current state on their shoulders directly. Yes, their seasons could be a part of the equation, but we’ve seen many controversial moments happening in the franchise in recent years, AND the real threat to the show’s current state deserves to be directed toward those behind the scenes.
Just this March, two co-executive producers stepped down from the franchise following reports of an alleged toxic workplace connected to ABC and Warner Bros. Those exits also came following the exit of creator Mike Fleiss from his role in early 2023 after 21 years at the helm of the franchise, following years of controversy connected to the franchise.
These behind-the-scenes shake-ups are more likely to be behind the current state of the franchise, as ABC and Warner Bros. are likely working to change things up to ensure that when the shows return, impactful changes have been made behind the scenes.