(ETH) – As the first bisexual star of hit global dating show “The Bachelor”, Brooke Blurton said she is proud to boost LGBT+ representation on mainstream television with her lead role in Australia’s new edition of the series. Chosen as “The Bachelorette”, a spin-off from the long-running U.S. reality TV show “The Bachelor”, in which the star chooses who to date, Blurton said she is “so happy” bi people are finally being accepted.
“I’m so proud and I’m so happy this is happening,” said Blurton, who, as a Noongar-Yamatji woman from Western Australia, is also the show’s first Indigenous Bachelorette. “I’m absolutely so ready for it and I think that I’m just excited for that exposure to how beautiful the community is,” Blurton, 26, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“The Bachelor”, now in its 25th season in the United States, first aired in 2002. The franchise has since been sold around the world, with 37 countries from Croatia to South Africa producing versions of the show.
But until Blurton was announced as Australia’s Bachelorette, the show has been exclusively heterosexual, with a male or female protagonist picking from a dating pool made up of the opposite sex. The new show, which airs in Australia later this year, will have a mixed pool of both men and women. “I don’t really focus on the gender of a person and I’ve always been very open that I don’t have a preference,” said Blurton, who previously appeared as a contestant on “The Bachelor Australia” in 2018, but left without finding love. READ MORE
