Season 22 was initially supposed to arrive as part of ABC’s midseason lineup, with Taylor Frankie Paul’s season slated to premiere on Sunday, March 22. However, days before the season was set to premiere, ABC pulled the season from its schedule after a disturbing video from a 2023 domestic violence incident surfaced and quickly gained attention.
"In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” ABC said in a statement at the time.
While ABC never announced plans to air the season, rumors quickly began gaining momentum in the weeks that followed about a possible summer release for the season. On June 24, TMZ reported that ABC was looking to add The Bachelorette to its summer schedule with a mid-July premiere being eyed by the network.
According to the report, while ABC pulled the season from the schedule, editors never stopped working on the season and continued to work on cutting the episodes for release. This hinted that ABC was keeping the door open for the season to be released at some point.
A July release would make sense, as July will bring new seasons of several ABC summer series, including the new Dancing with the Stars spinoff, Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro. Pairing The Bachelorette season 22 with Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro seems like a perfect scheduling move for ABC, and it just so happened that the first season of the spinoff will premiere on July 13.
There is a chance that ABC might proceed with this plan. The only problem is that every time conversations about The Bachelorette season 22 finally releasing gain momentum, a new controversy surrounding Paul tends to appear.
Less than a week after TMZ reported ABC was having behind-the-scenes conversations about bringing the show back mid-July, they broke a new report about Paul’s ex-husband, Tate Paul, seeking a restraining order from Paul and sole custody of their children—news that broke less than 24 hours after Paul posted about the police being called on her by her most recent ex, Dakota Mortensen, in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Given the continued controversy that surrounds Paul, it seems like there might never be a good time for ABC to release the season which presents the network with a major dilemma. They can choose to truly scrap the season or accept that there might never be a “good” time to drop the season. We have a feeling ABC wants to release the season and this could make sense if they tapped someone from Paul’s season to lead the next season of The Bachelor, which is slated to arrive in early 2027.
We’ll see if ABC proceeds with releasing The Bachelorette sometime this summer, but we imagine they will minimalize their promotion of the season should that day come.
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