On Thursday, Chris Harrison announced the contestants vying for Colton Underwood’s affections … and virginity. One of these women, Tracy Shapoff, is already causing a stir among the Bachelor Nation in the worst way. She has tweeted some alarming things. Some are awkward … but some of what she has said online is absolutely abhorrent. When Chris Harrison said that Tracy would make a “flashy first impression,” we don’t think that this is what he menat. He also mentioned that Tracy may “find herself the center of drama night one.” This, however, isn’t about Tracy’s behavior on the show. Instead, it’s about a series of old tweets of hers that have surfaced now that her name has been announced. In 2010, she tweeted: “Do ppl really think they’re finding love on reality tv…or am I just the idiot that watches it?” Obviously, that tweet isn’t harmful or problematic. It’s just a little awkward since Tracy herself has now found herself competing for love on reality television. At the time, she could not have known that she would one day end up on screen, indirectly referring to the Bachelor Nation as “idiots.” We wish that the rest of these tweets were as innocuous. They are not. Another has a much more hateful message. “Wow it’s really cool when you goto get in a cab and some fat prick w/ veneers flips out because he claims he hailed it first…ahole,” Tracy tweeted in 2011. That tweet, in which she seems to single out the alleged weight of a stranger for criticism, is only one example. It appears that Tracy has — or, at least, had — a real problem with anyone who mgiht be overweight or fat. This next tweet is so vile that we can’t even write out all of the words, and it also includes fat-shaming. “Liposuction is r—-ded…stop wasting your money and just get your fat ass to the gym,” she tweeted in 2010. Abhorrent. Let’s ignore her absolute cluelessness about genetic differences that allow one person to lose weight through exercise more easily than another. Regardless of someone’s reason for doing liposuction, that’s no one’s business but theirs and their doctor’s. And, obviously, no one should use slurs. She just hurled the r-slur, which probably means that she felt comfortable using it in her speech, too. In another tweet, she expressed outrage that two older and allegedly overweight women were enjoying themselves at the gym. “Wish these fat old women on the treadmill would shut the hell up,” she lamented in 2010. Her tweet concluded with a demand: “Stop dancing and just [work out].” Obviously, these are older tweets. They date back to 2010 and to 2011. Fat-shaming back then was not okay, even if the general cutlure was less aware of it. Using the r-slur was emphatically not okay either, and to be honest, we think that everyone knew that even then. If we were talking about Tracy committing assaults or violence, this would be the end of the discussion. But saying things — even terrible things — far in the past is not necessarily irredeemable. Tracy can absolutely apologize and show that she has grown as a person. After all, who among us isn’t at least a little wiser or kinder than we were in 2011? Some members of the Bachelor Nation have been quick to point out parallels between Tracy’s exposed tweets and another recent scandal. During Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette, Garrett Yrigoyen was exposed for “liking” a lot of vicious, dehumanizing political posts. These Instagram posts weren’t just partisan — no matter your political views, the posts he “liked” were deeply bigoted. Garrett apologized, but the posts that he had liked were only a few months old. In the mean time, Tracy’s date back the better part of a decade. Audiences may be much more willing to believe that Tracy has had a change of heart. View Slideshow: Garrett Yrigoyen: Bachelorette Suitor’s Bigoted Social Media History EXPOSED
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Tracy Shapoff: The Bachelor Contestant Caught Using Slurs, Fat-Shaming
