Racial bias suit filed against 'Bachelor'
By Jane Caffrey, CNN
(CNN) - A class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday accused ABC, along with an individual and the companies involved in production of "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," of intentionally excluding people of color from lead roles on the shows' past 23 combined seasons.
The complaint alleges that ABC and the other defendants have only hired white applicants based on "the calculation that minorities in lead roles and interracial dating [are] unappealing to the shows’ audiences...a conscious attempt to minimize the risk of alienating their majority-white viewership and the advertisers targeting that viewership."
The suit was brought by Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, two African-American men living in Nashville who applied to be on “The Bachelor” in 2011.
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