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Maybe it’s time for The Bachelor franchise to end

It’s become impossible to simply enjoy the mess and ignore the real-life trauma behind it.

The newest Bachelorette season is canceled, right on the cusp of its premiere — and it may inadvertently spell the end of the franchise.

This season was slated to debut on Sunday with Taylor Frankie Paul, star of the Hulu reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, in the title spot. Everything about the 22nd season’s marketing signaled that it was a new era: Paul is an established reality TV star on another Disney-owned franchise, not a veteran of The Bachelor, as almost all of her predecessors were. And the show was moving from its typical weeknight slot to a coveted Sunday primetime airing.

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Then allegations against Paul of domestic violence resurfaced in the week leading up to the premiere. ABC appeared to be doing its best to salvage the season, sending Paul out on Good Morning America on Wednesday morning. (“I’m a person that will always speak my truth,” she told host Lara Spencer in the interview. “That’s what I’m known for. So when the time is right, I will be.”) But after TMZ published a 2023 video on Thursday that showed Paul throwing a chair during an argument with her former partner Dakota Mortensen while her child cried nearby, the network decided to........

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