The Bachelor Casts First Black Male Lead Who Is Matt James

The Bachelor Casts First Black Male Lead: Who Is Matt James?

Season 25 of The Bachelor is scheduled to premiere in 2021. Here’s what Bachelor Nation needs to know about the leading man, Matt James.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

The Bachelor Casts First Black Male Lead Who Is Matt James

The Bachelor has named Matt James as its first-ever Black lead. The ABC show announced on Friday that 28-year-old Matt James will star as the first Black Bachelor in the upcoming 25th season. James was earlier cast as a contestant on Claire Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette a few months ago, but the production was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement comes after more than 85,000 people (and counting) have signed a petition called “A Campaign For Anti-Racism in the Bachelor Franchise” on Change.org demanding representation on the show that has till now cast 40 season leads, with just one of them being Black. Asking ABC and Warner Bros. to reflect and honor the racial diversity in the nation – both on and off camera – the petition stressed that representation matters, and requested actions such as, “Cast BIPOC for at least 35% of contestants each season hereafter,” “Give equitable screen time to BIPOC contestants,” and “Feature BIPOC contestants, including their experiences as BIPOC, on the show as storylines.” to combat racism. Furthermore, the petition also insisted on the showrunners issuing a public statement apologizing for enabling systemic racism while offering a clear plan for taking anti-racism efforts in the future.

Looking back, it was in 2017 that Rachel Lindsay has created history by being cast as the first (and only) Black lead in The Bachelorette franchise across the show’s successful 40 seasons. The Season 13 Bachelorette and Bachelor Happy Hour co-host Lindsay was also recently in the news when she proclaimed that she no longer wanted to be affiliated with the franchise. In her statement that came in after a week of nationwide protests against systemic racism in the US, following George Floyd’s death, Lindsay stated on her website that it’s long past due that the franchise had a diversity makeover. But with ABC’s announcement of Matt James being the first Black man to get the lead role today, here’s what fans need to know about the 28-year-old real estate broker

See also  Cobra Kai 10 Best Friendships In Season 3

It’s official…your next Bachelor is @mattjames919! pic.twitter.com/KpBFdtD54Y

The show’s Twitter account @BachelorABC broke the news today by tweeting, “It’s official… your next Bachelor is @mattjames919” to its 978k followers. James is not an unfamiliar face to the Bachelor Nation as apart from previously being cast as a suitor for Clare Crawley’s The Bachelorette, he is also the best friend, roommate and business partner to season fifteen’s fan-favorite Tyler Cameron. A North Carolina native, he is an alum of Wake Forest University where he majored in economics. James, who started off by playing wide receiver for his school’s football team, even played the sport professionally before moving to New York City.

Since then, he’s the proud founder of ABC Food Tours, an organization that was developed to find creative ways to engage children from underprivileged communities in NYC. By exposing kids to new restaurants in their local communities and teaching them that anything is possible, the non-profit that James runs with Tyler Cameron, help them lead healthy, active lifestyles. The twosome who became best friends while playing on the Wake Forest University football team at Winston-Salem had begun thinking of the wonderful initiative back then itself.

By 2019, they had worked with more than 50,000 kids across Manhattan and Brooklyn, slowly expanding into the Bronx. Each tour consists of stops at a number of local restaurants coupled with a physical activity component and informative conversations on how to live active and healthy lifestyles. Quite often, James can be seen with Cameron and Hannah Brown and also spent time with the two during quarantine, as documented on the couple’s viral TikTok channel.

See also  Game of Thrones New Details Emerge About Famously Bad Unaired Pilot

Matt James took to Good Morning America this morning in an exclusive while describing his reaction to being cast as the new Bachelor. James started off by saying, “It’s an honor.” He continued, “I’m just going to lean into myself and how my mom raised me and hopefully when people invite me into their homes on Monday night they’re going to see that I’m not much different from them and they see that diverse love stories are beautiful.” He also joked about keeping the big announcement a secret from his mom, saying, “I’m sorry mom, but it’s hard for her to keep a secret, so I had to keep it super tight. She’s just now finding out, which is kind of a fun way for everyone to participate.”

An open supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, James’ Instagram followers see him posting about the nationwide protests and he also has been vocal about how Black men are perceived. Fans can look forward to watching James as The Bachelor on their screens in 2021 while in the meantime, Crawley’s upcoming season of The Bachelorette will be airing this fall.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/the-bachelor-casts-first-black-male-lead-who-is-matt-james/

Movies -