Former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin is speaking out after her fiancé Garrett Yrigoyen drew the ire of fans when he used the Blackout Tuesday initiative to voice his support for law enforcement last week.
In case you missed it, the reality TV alum shared a photo of a “Thin Blue Line” symbol instead of a plain black box, along with a lengthy essay where he urged followers not to judge all police by the bad actions of a few.
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Yrigoyen wrote in part:
“I’ve been pretty tore up the past week about everything going on. I’ve listened, learned, helped, supported, and grown. With so many friends and family in law enforcement I couldn’t sit back and not support them and the hundreds of thousands of men and women of all races that represent this Thin Blue Line as well. It’s important for me to recognize the ones who stand in the gap and put their lives on the line each and every single day for humans of different race and ethnicity, including those who hate them.”
The Bachelorette season 14 winner added:
“We can’t judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few. We can’t judge the peaceful protesters by the actions of the few violent protesters, and we sure can’t judge all cops by the actions of a few bad ones. Remember when they put on the badge they’re still humans, with raw emotion, the more brutality they face the more on edge they become, they make mistakes, they have compassion, and no matter how terrible they are treated or whatever negative is said to them, they still show up for us when we need them! Remember these men and women who hold this Thin Blue Line; strangers, friends, family, neighbors, or your enemies. They will always be out there protecting us, no matter what!”
Many fans and alum of the franchise, including Nick Viall and Bekah Martinez, were quick to pick up on the insensitive “blue lives matter” tone within his post and slam him for it! Days later, Becca utilized the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast she hosts with Rachel Lindsay to address her fiancé’s controversial statement. While she does not “align” or “agree with” the post, Becca argued:
“Garrett is my fiancé and I love him and to his core, I believe that he is a good person. I don’t think he meant it in a malicious way…I do think it was tone-deaf, and it was the wrong time and message and sentiment.”
Those comments come while our country is in the midst of a movement calling attention to the disproportionate amount of Black people killed by police in the wake of George Floyd‘s tragic death. Bad timing is an understatement!
Becca added the couple is “struggling too right now” and there is still “a lot of growth and changing of mindsets I would like to see take place.” But Rachel, the franchise’s first and only Black lead, wasn’t willing to let the situation end there! She called out Garrett for feigning support for Black Lives Matter in one post and then contradicting himself with those police statements in another:
“To me, this is what Garrett thinks, this is what Garrett is. He posted a black box. He never said ‘black lives matter.’ He posted fists of every color, which to me is like, ‘Everybody, all lives.’ And then the very next post is the ‘thin blue line’ with a heartfelt, thought-out caption that he said with his chest. And to me, that is what you feel, and that is what you believe. I don’t think Garrett is malicious, but Garrett is what the problem is.”
She added:
“You don’t have to be riding around with white sheets on to be doing things that are racist. I know Garrett has a good heart, but the fact that he is willing to equate Blue Lives Matter to Black Lives Matter shows me that you don’t get it. Garrett is not an idiot…. you are not willing to unlearn the world that you live in.”
This isn’t the first time Yrigoyen has made distasteful comments online, and Lindsay later told Entertainment Tonight she refrained from checking him on it out of respect for her friendship with Becca, but could not remain silent about this:
“This is who I feel he is, and it’s upsetting to me, because I’ve been around him, I’ve spent time with him and I’ve really grown to like him, but it’s like 15 steps back with what I saw with this post. I just told her, for me, this is a person who’s unwilling to unlearn the way he has- the society he has lived in, and because he hasn’t been around people of color, which he admitted to… This is now the second incident that we know of that he’s done something like this.”
And at this point, if anyone is going to get through to Garrett, it’s probably the ones closest to him like Becca! The starlet touched on the responsibility she bears in all of this while promoting the podcast episode online:
“This conversation was the hardest, most uncomfortable, but important ones that we’ve had. I value my friendship with Rachel. I also value my partnership with Garrett. So this is really effing hard. As it should be. I will be the first to admit that listening to this back, I came up short. Very short. I listen to this & wish I had said more, wish I could have expressed myself better, wish I could have given so much more than I did.”
The good thing is these conversations won’t stop so there should be another opportunity for her and Garrett to get it right. Hopefully, they’ll take it! Perezcious readers, thoughts on all of this??
[Image via Nicky Nelson/WENN/Becca Kufrin/Instagram]
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