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Getting candid.
Bachelor Nation fans got to know Rachel Nance on Season 28 of “The Bachelor” when she looked for love with Joey Graziadei.
During the “Women Tell All” episode, Rachel opened up about the racist and hateful messages she received while the show was airing.
Now, the beloved Bachelor Nation star penned an emotional essay for Today and shared why she decided to open up about the hate and what she discovered her true purpose of going on the show was.
Rachel reflected on her Hometown date, saying, “I let my family take the reins and introduce him to several Filipino customs — traditional dances and a feast of lechon. Before the date, I had to prepare myself. I wondered, ‘Am I doing too much, showing my culture?’ But my family loved it, and I loved it. My mom and my auntie, who are both from the Philippines, were so proud.”
She went on, sharing, “As soon as that episode aired on the East Coast, I knew something was off, because I started getting some direct messages on my social media — people saying I’m disgusting, and ‘seeing you guys kiss is foul.’ I deleted the messages. Then once it aired all over, my phone blew up. People were saying my family is barbaric, my culture is barbaric, I’m a jungle Asian. People who were repulsed that Joey would even want to be with me.”
While Rachel said she tried to let the hate messages go, she couldn’t let go of how they were attacking her family and her culture.
ABC
She said, “I tried my best to not let it get to me. The attacks on me weren’t what bothered me — it was that people were attacking something my family was so proud of: where we come from. The comments were the worst. I started deleting any comments on my posts so that my family wouldn’t see them, but it was too much. They’d already seen. Finally I put a safety filter on TikTok and Instagram so I couldn’t see what everybody was saying. I blocked words like ‘animal’ and ‘Asian’ and ‘skin.’”
Rachel shared what it was like to open up about the hate during the Women “Tell All episode” and to feel supported by her castmates.
She shared, “I was so emotional. It was like everything I’d ever experienced was coming up at that point. I have a hard time letting those emotions out, because of how I was raised. I didn’t want anyone to think, ‘Oh, she’s just trying to make a scene.’ While I was onstage talking, the girls were cheering for me. I felt the love from all of them. The audience, too. For the first time since getting all those hateful messages, I just didn’t feel alone.”
And when reflecting back on her time on the show, Rachel now sees that she had a bigger purpose than finding love with Joey.
She said, “I don’t regret going on the show. I loved every second of it — the ups and the downs. When I first started filming, I met with the show’s therapist and she asked me, ‘What’s your purpose for being on the show?’ I said, ‘My purpose is that I’m here to find love and I think it might be with Joey.’ But sometimes when it’s not you at the end, that’s the best outcome.”
Rachel added, “And honestly, for me, not being with Joey was the best outcome, because I fell back in love with myself, with my family, with who I am as a person. Toward the end of filming, I spoke with the therapist again and she asked me the same question and I said, ‘Now I think my purpose is to heal myself from things I didn’t know I was going through.’”
Check out more of Rachel’s heartfelt essay here.
