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It’s been just over a week since the decision was made to cancel — or at least pause — Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette following the leak of a disturbing video from her 2023 domestic violence arrest. Lots of people are speaking out about if ABC made the right decision, if someone with a violent past should have been made the lead in the first place and what this could mean for The Bachelor franchise overall. Now the very first Bachelorette Trista Sutter has weighed in.
Trista Sutter, who led the first season of The Bachelorette in 2003 after finishing as the runner-up on The Bachelor Season 1, attended the iHeartRadio Music Awards, where PauseRewind asked about her reaction to news of Taylor Frankie Paul’s season being pulled from the 2026 TV schedule. Sutter said:
I was very sad. It is a show that has given me so much, and it felt like it could be the end. I’m gonna hope that it’s not, but I was very sad. There have been some mistakes made, and I’m just trying to show grace.
Trista Sutter chose not to call out any of those “mistakes” specifically, but I’m a little surprised at how candid she was about feeling like this could be the end of The Bachelor franchise. She’s not the only alumna from the show to say as much, as Season 13 lead Rachel Lindsay didn’t mince words when saying, “the name Bachelorette, Bachelor is tainted at this point.”
Trista Sutter suggested she has been in touch with Taylor Frankie Paul since the news broke, saying that she wrote in The Bachelorette group text that, “I’m here for you,” and as for the fans, she hopes Bachelor Nation will continue to weather this storm, saying:
To The Bachelor fans, thank you for your support over the years, and I hope you stick with us.
The Season 1 Bachelorette — who is one of The Bachelor’s most famous contestants, having also competed on Dancing with the Stars, Fear Factor and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test — got the chance to meet Taylor Frankie Paul recently. Trista Sutter and most of the other Bachelorette leads reunited in support of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star for a “Before the First Rose” special that aired a week before what would have been Paul’s premiere.
Trista Sutter had nothing but nice things to say about the MomTok leader, as she continued:
She was wonderful. She was so genuine and invested, and really, truly just wanted to hear the advice of everybody there — and that was a lot of advice, because there was a lot of people there. But she was wonderful.
Four days after their reunion special aired, ABC decided to pull the plug on The Bachelorette Season 22, following the release of a video from the 2023 incident involving Taylor Frankie Paul and her then-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen that led to Paul’s arrest.
The leaked viral video came on the heels of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives halting production on Season 5 amid new domestic violence allegations between Paul and Mortensen from February of this year. Since then, a third incident between the former couple — this one from 2024 — has come to light.
There are a lot of questions surrounding the ABC dating franchise, with the network reportedly losing tens of millions of dollars, and I agree with Trista Sutter that this is a “very sad” situation from all angles.