JoJo Fletcher was the lead of The Bachelorette season 12, but fans almost got to see JoJo’s castmate Caila Quinn be the be the franchise’s first Asian American lead. Before the network decided to pick JoJo, ABC was already shooting footage of Caila’s Filipino family and hometown for her intro package. Caila has made peace with being booted as The Bachelorette, but wishes viewers had gotten the chance to see more Asian-American representation on the show.
Caila was an early frontrunner on Ben Higgins’ season of The Bachelor, and she even made it into his top three. She was beautiful, eloquent and likable, so after she was eliminated, ABC thought she’d make a great Bachelorette. However, after Ben told both of his final two women he loved them, he chose Lauren over JoJo. Fans saw how heartbroken JoJo was and demanded she be given a shot at The Bachelorette. Caila got the boot and JoJo was presented to the world as the new Bachelorette.
Before JoJo took the lead, ABC worked with Caila for months, flying her to LA for dress fittings, having meetings, and filming an intro package of Caila and her family. “I wish they would share the footage because we had, like, 100 of my Filipino family together for the first episode that we recorded,” Caila said in an interview with Us Weekly. “And we had this giant Filipino barbecue where there was, like, a pig on a spit. And it felt like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but my big fat Filipino wedding.”
There has been a rash of hate crimes directed at Asian-Americans in the past year, and Asian representation in the media is horribly lacking. So for Caila, one of her main regrets is that viewers didn’t get to see more of her family and culture. “I’ll be honest, a lot of America doesn’t even know where the Philippines is or what Filipino culture is,” Caila commented. “I think Asian is grouped together as one ethnicity and there’s really just so much more to it out there than just like, you know, Chinese and Japanese.”
Caila didn’t find love on the show, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t find love—she’s currently happily engaged and preparing for her wedding. But because Caila missed out on the chance to be The Bachelorette, she never got to be the first Asian-American Bachelorette, and unfortunately, there hasn’t been one since her either. There still hasn’t been an Asian-American lead in the franchise, but fans are hoping that Dr. Joe Park of Tayshia’s season will have the chance to change that.
Source: Us Weekly