Tayshia Adamsis singingBachelorettecontestantAndrew Spencer’s praises.
“I was there for the season, but I wasn’t really privy to seeing every single conversation that went down. … I love Andrew S. already, but just how real, honest and courageous it was for him to have this conversation with Katie on his one-on-one — I think [it] is what everybody needs,” Adams told her co-hostsJoe AmabileandNatasha Parker. “I think that it’s interesting because Katie called herself naive. I think, unfortunately, a lot of America is naive and especially … about interracial relationships and, you know, whatever race you are [and] what difficulties you have to go through.”
The former Bachelorette, who herself is in an interracial relationship with fiancéZac Clark, continued: “I just found this so courageous of him, and I’m just so happy that he was able to have a conversation [that’s] open and honest with Katie. Her reaction meant so much to me.”
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Amabile agreed that it was “a very important conversation to have” on national television. “I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to shy away from important conversations early on in a relationship,” theBachelor in Paradisestar, 34, said. “Andrew S. is a good friend of mine [from] before[he went on the show]. And I do have to say, I’m proud of him. I think he’s doing an incredible job. Everything that you’re seeing is [him being] himself. He’s being genuine, he’s real. He is one of the nicest people that I know.”
Parker also praised Thurston for “calling herself out as naive” to Spencer’s experience.
On Monday’s episode ofThe Bachelorette, Spencer initiated a candid conversation with Thurston about interracial dating. “I hate that I even have to have this conversation, because I don’t want to, but the fact that I am, it’s because I do truly see, you know, something between us,” he said. “I am a Black man, and you are a white woman, and interracial couples, there’s things that, you know, people look at differently.”
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He went on to share a story about a woman he nearly proposed to, and how he wasn’t sure she would be able to handle criticism of their interracial relationship. “I know her heart, and I know her character. She’s not racist or anything, but she was worried about going to a grocery store and someone asking, ‘Are these your kids?’ And they’d not look like her,” he recalled. “And it was tough for me, you know? That was a woman that I thought I was going to propose to soon. And hearing that, it was tough.”
Thurston, in turn, assured Spencer that she wouldn’t care what the naysayers had to say. “That breaks my heart to hear that you experienced that,” she said. “I feel so naive as a white woman of the struggles that you experience as a Black man, especially a Black man trying to date a white woman.”
“Know that, for me, I think our love could be so beautiful,” she added. “And our children would be just as beautiful as that love, and I don’t give a s— when people want to look at me.”
The Bacheloretteairs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
source: people.com
