Bachelor Nation viewers who tuned in to watch Michelle Young’s suitors dish about what really happened on Season 18 of The Bachelorette were caught off-guard when the focus of the “Men Tell All” turned away from the men and onto co-host Tayshia Adams. Kaitlyn Bristowe navigated an awkward, but mercifully short, interview with Adams about her recent breakup with fiancé Zac Clark. This led some fans to say the show crossed a line, especially after Adams was overcome with emotion and walked off stage during the interview that followed.
Kaitlyn Bristowe spoke out in defense of the interview, however, saying that she wanted Tayshia Adams to be able to own her story, as news of the end of her engagement had just come out on the day of the “Men Tell All” filming. Bristowe told US Weekly’s Here for the Right Reasons podcast that her co-host was “beside herself” ahead of filming but that Adams wanted to do the interview:
I saw her in the trailer so upset, she was having anxiety. And I was like, ‘You don’t have to address this if you don’t want to. But I think if you want to have your own voice and be able to, like, just share how you’re feeling, it’s up to you.’ I mean, at the end of the day, as long as she was — now, I say comfortable, she wasn’t comfortable with it — but she wanted to address it. And so we had to put it in there somewhere. And honestly, I was just really proud of how she handled everything [because] it felt like a true professional.
Tayshia Adams was clearly not okay, as her co-host gently asked her why she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring. Adams didn’t provide any details about what went wrong between her and Zac Clark, who she got engaged to at the end of Season 16 of The Bachelorette. She said the couple tried really hard to make it work and that she was heartbroken.
It was Kaitlyn Bristowe’s transition into the hosts’ next interview, however, that really bothered fans, and seemingly her emotional colleage, too. Bristowe introduced Season 18 fan favorite Rodney Mathews to the stage, saying, “From one broken heart to another,” after which the former Bachelorette stood up and walked off stage. Bachelor Nation said the placement in the show and the drama at her expense felt staged, and Bristowe agreed it was a hard segment to fit into the show:
It’s hard to put something in there that will feel, you know, staged or scripted because you wanna work it in there and make sure that she has a voice and that she’s able to talk about it [and] not just pretend it didn’t happen or just go through the whole show when she was clearly, like, struggling that day.
Surely everybody can relate to having things happen in their personal life that make it hard to concentrate on work but, luckily, most of us don’t have to do that on-camera. Kaitlyn Bristowe herself went through her own public breakup with Shawn Booth, who she got engaged to at the end of The Bachelorette Season 11. Three years later, they announced the end of their relationship, and Bristowe is now engaged to Jason Tartick, who competed on Becca Kufrin’s season.
There’s one thing that Bachelor Nation and Kaitlyn Bristowe agree on whole-heartedly — Tayshia Adams was a boss for going back on stage and finishing the job after she took a few minutes to herself. You can see Bristowe and Adams in action again on Tuesday, December 21, for the three-hour Season 18 finale of The Bachelorette. And be sure to check out our 2022 TV Schedule to see what’s in store for the new year.
