Earlier this month, The Bachelor host Chris Harrison stepped away from the show after "speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism" to former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay.
Harrison won't be hosting this season's After the Final Rose special — and it's still unclear whether he'll be returning to the show at all. There's already reports that Lindsay could replace Harrison for the gig.
But what if Lindsay was asked to take over Harrison's job entirely? She addressed such a possibility on a forthcoming episode of the Black Girls Texting podcast (via People).
"Honestly, I can't even go there," she began, noting that Harrison's departure from the series is only temporary for the time being.
"It's hard for me to even think about being the host, because in a lot of ways, Bachelor Nation has changed my life in the best way possible. But at the same time, it's really toxic. ... And I don't know if I want to subject myself to that."
Lindsay expressed wariness about the public's perception of her taking the job: "I don't know if I want to play into the whole line of thinking that people think I did this to get Chris Harrison's job. It's so wild. ... How would I even think like that? But that's the kind of stuff that people say about me. So I don't know if that's something that's for me."
Lindsay has another concern too: The "freedom to say how I feel and to demand change and speak out, I couldn't do that the same way if I was the host," she said, before adding, "But on the flip side, if I was, then I'd be a person in power who could say, 'Hey, we need to do this.'"
"That's what I keep preaching more than anything," Lindsay explained. "More than having a host replacement, you've got to have somebody in power who is a person of color who gets it, who understands it."
"Because as we're seeing time and time again, even with the lead [of color], you're still not getting it, because we're seeing things happen that shouldn't."
