Jenn Tran can’t help but think about being the first Asian-American cast member in “The Bachelor” franchise history — even though she wants to be.
“I think about it every day, all the time. I think if I put it aside, it would be a disgrace to me, because I’m Asian American, this is me,” the 26-year-old aspiring physician assistant told The Associated Press.
The arrival of a Vietnamese-American woman at the helm of Bachelor Nation marks a turning point for the reality TV giant. Historically, fewer roses have been handed out to contestants of color on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.” The roses that have been handed out have often come with plenty of thorns, including racist comments on social media.
Tran’s season doesn’t premiere on ABC until Monday, but it has already been criticized for having few suitors of Asian descent. Still, Tran, who made it to the final six on the most recent “Bachelor” season with Joey Graziadei, sees her unconventional search for love as an opportunity to share her bicultural upbringing.
“My mother and I speak a lot of Vietnamese together. I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s something no one has ever seen before,” Tran says.
“The Bachelor” has been a melting pot of Asian cultures. In 2019, “Bachelor” lead Colton Underwood went on a date over Singaporean street food. The mostly white contestants made gagging sounds, and Colton, who is also white, toasted “weird food.” The outing drew backlash and even a column from the Washington Post.
Tran, whose season has already wrapped filming, says the show treated her Vietnamese identity with respect.
“There’s a little scene at the beginning of my introduction where I’m talking to my family about starting out as a single person and they’re cooking a big, big Vietnamese meal,” Tran says. “I hope… that I’m showing people something that’s different from them. And so it can inspire change and acceptance in people.”
Nonwhite contestants and leads, including Black frontrunners Rachel Lindsay and Matt James, have historically faced hostility from Bachelor Nation’s largely white audience. Longtime host Chris Harrison left the franchise in 2021 amid criticism for his handling of a racial controversy in an interview with Lindsay. Rachel Nance, who is Filipina and Black and survived Tran on Graziadei’s season, tearfully recounted that in March, she received “hundreds” of DMs and comments containing racial slurs against Black and Asian people. (Some viewers were disappointed that host Jesse Palmer didn’t address racism but instead asked viewers to tone down their “strong opinions.”)
Tran hasn’t been spared the same treatment. She receives racist comments “every day” on Instagram and TikTok, she says. Her approach is to simply ignore them, though it’s not easy.
“Social media is like a platform where all these people are coming at me at once and it’s a new feeling. It’s overwhelming. And unfortunately, that’s the world we live in right now,” Tran says. “I hope people will be more open-minded and really open their hearts to that.”
Tran’s rise to stardom has certainly piqued the interest of Asian Americans who don’t typically watch “Bachelor” shows. One of them is Vi Luong, 27, a social media influencer and content creator of Vietnamese descent who has only watched “The Golden Bachelor.” She never cared about the younger incarnations.
“I would say 90 percent of my friends are Asian, and yeah, they’re kind of like me, they never really cared until now,” says Luong, who lives in Irvine, California. “The negative narrative I got was like, ‘Oh, she’s a diversity hire.’ Maybe, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. … To appeal to a whole different demographic, I think that’s a smart move.”
Luong has already received invitations to attend parties hosted by the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Luong, whose boyfriend is white, wants to see how Tran and the show handle interracial relationships and potential cultural clashes. She’s also eager to see how Tran’s mother handles dating her boyfriend.
“That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, this could get really interesting,’” Luong says. “If there’s one thing you need to know about the Vietnamese, we’re very, very frank, very direct people, especially our parents’ generation.”
The star herself says that her mother has only watched Vietnamese reality TV shows. Tran doesn’t know how her parents will react to what will be broadcast, but her mother was not shy during filming, which Tran believes will make for a good TV show.
“She brought up some concerns and some aspects of our Vietnamese culture, so that’s something I’m excited to share with people,” Tran says. “She was really trying to understand all of that.”
Only a handful of the 25 men competing for her affections appear to be Asian, and only one is Vietnamese-American. The franchise’s lack of Asian men is a recurring complaint: The “Bachelor” universe, which began in 2002, didn’t have an Asian contestant until the 2016 season of “The Bachelorette.” Jonathan, a half-Scottish, half-Chinese tech salesman, entered in a kilt and is best remembered for a crude line implying that his Asian side wasn’t as manly.
In response to the lack of Asian men, Asian-American production company Wong Fu Productions produced two “Bachelorette” parody sketches in 2017 and 2018. Collectively, the YouTube videos, one of which features a pre-“Shang Chi” Simu Liu, have racked up more than 9 million views.
Philip Wang, the show’s co-founder and director, plans to follow Tran’s journey. He called her casting “a positive decision” but hopes the show will avoid stereotypes.
“Ultimately, Bachelor/ette shows are very white-skewed, so it’s an uphill battle to change that branding/audience… if it’s worth it,” Wang wrote in an email.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last month, the showrunners who took over from creator Mike Fleiss last year addressed the franchise’s troubling history of racism, acknowledging that they failed to address concerns about its few nonwhite leads and online harassment, and acknowledging that Tran should have had more Asian suitors.
As to whether any of these suitors have put a ring on her finger, Tran will not confirm.
“I can tell you I’m happy with how things turned out,” she said with a smile.
In addition to romance, Tran also feels like she’s found her voice in “The Bachelor” franchise. She’s been open about wanting to end a string of toxic relationships. She hopes viewers will see an Asian-American woman who isn’t afraid to stand up for what she knows she deserves.
“Throughout this journey, I’ve really learned to stand up for myself, because if I don’t, no one else will,” Tran says. “I hope women see that and understand that it’s okay to speak up and that it makes you stronger in who you are.”
