Wills Reid has a message for ABC, and it goes something like this:
If America can handle a black man in the White House, it can absolutely handle a black man in the Fantasy Suite.
So… let’s do this, Chris Harrison and company!
In other, less complicated and more exact words:
Reid, who is appearing on Bachelor in Paradise this summer, wants to be the next Bachelor, even if no one in this role before him has shared his skin color.
“I feel like if the stars align and I am single after Paradise, I would love to be the next Bachelor,” he told Entertainment Weekly during ABC’s portion of the Television Critics Association conference in Beverly Hills.
Added the always-fashionable Wills:
“I feel like I would bring intensity, but genuine intensity.
“There’d be some tears – some good tears, some bad tears, but I’d also bring a renewed sense of what the world looks like today.
“I would bring style, I would bring consideration and care and kindness to all the women that would be there. I feel like there isn’t a better candidate than me.”
That’s quite a pitch.
Is Wills sure he wants to go into reality television and not politics?
We’re just kidding, of course.
But Reid is dead serious about wanting to be named the next Bachelor, especially considering how wide open the field appears to be.
Current frontrunners include third runner-up Jason Tartick from Buffalo, along with the very sweaty second-place finisher Blake Horstmann.
Each has expressed interest in the gig, as has famous virgin Colton Underwood.
Wills, though, knows he would stand out because he has a great sense of humor, an outsized personality and, yes, because he’s African-American.
Let’s be honest here, right?
Rachel Lindsay became the first-ever person of color to be The Bachelorette a couple years ago and Reid thinks it’s time this fellow ABC franchise followed suit.
“There’s no time like the present,” he says, adding:
“I feel like I would be a great first, and just to be the first African-American anything in a positive light would bring honor to myself and my family forever.
“I would welcome that challenge 125 percent.”
Would you welcome Wills in this role?
Or would you prefer one of the other gentlemen listed below?
