Nearly three years after they fought over 39-year-old Nick Viall on The Bachelor, former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay declared her feud with season 21 winner Vanessa Grimaldi over. Honestly, most fans likely didn’t even know there was a feud, and that’s because the show never aired it.
Lindsay, 34, and Grimaldi, 32, both vied for the affections of former software salesman Nick Viall back in the winter of 2017. Viall, who famously competed on The Bachelorette twice and Bachelor in Paradise before being cast as the lead of his own season of The Bachelor, got engaged to Grimaldi during the season’s finale, but the two split only a few months later. Lindsay went on to become the franchise’s first black lead of season 13 of The Bachelorette. While Viall’s season was full of its own routine drama, nobody seemed to notice the so-called “feud” between Lindsay and Grimaldi.
According to November 27th’s Bachelor Happy Hour podcast (via: Us Weekly) where Lindsay shared that she and Grimaldi were indeed feuding, but the drama never aired and nobody blasted each other publicly, so nobody knew. Lindsay, a former attorney, was upset at some of the language Grimaldi used when confronting Lindsay, suggesting she was using “aggressive tones” and calling Lindsay a “bully”. The Texas native felt that as a special needs teacher, Grimaldi could have been more conservative about her language choices. Fellow season 21 contestant Danielle Lombard claimed Grimaldi called Lindsay something “extremely derogatory,” however, Lindsay never expanded on Lombard’s comment.
Whether “bully” was the right choice of word or not, Lindsay made a name for herself in the Bachelor community by being a strong-minded straight shooter. As The Bachelorette, Lindsay repeatedly called men out for their immature behaviors and even dramatically kicked contestant DeMario Jackson off of her season for having a “side piece.” Fans were split by the end of Lindsay’s season when it was clear she really wanted to choose Wisconsin bred Peter Kraus, but settled for chiropractor Bryan Abasolo when Kraus let Lindsay know he wasn’t ready to be engaged. Many were disappointed in Lindsay’s inability to follow her heart after a season of being such an admirable role model for women.
Despite Lindsay feeling like Grimaldi’s choice of words was an “assassination on [her] character,” the two women have put the past behind them. On the “Friendsgiving” special of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast, Lindsay said that Grimaldi messaged her after The Bachelorette, and that the two recently spoke on the phone and wished each other the best. “I mean, like, what a concept,” Lindsay, recently married, said about the women’s ability to reconcile.
Lindsay may have been able to make up with Vanessa Grimaldi, a Canadian and therefore friendly by nature, but the new Mrs. Abasolo has been at the heart of a lot of Bachelor Nation drama recently. In the past year Lindsay has been feuding with both fellow season 21 contestant Raven Gates, as well as season 23 lead Colton Underwood, and both fights are blurry in their origins. It’s also worth mentioning that these are just the publicly known arguments. As fans now know, some behind-the-scenes drama may never show its face in daylight. If a Bachelor fight falls in the forest and there’s no fans there to watch it, did it ever really happen?
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Source: Us Weekly
