ABC Mocked After 'Bachelorette' Promos Stay Up Online Even After Season Is Canceled

The fallout from would-be Bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul's domestic violence scandal may have been swift, but ABC's deletion of the show's promos certainly hasn't.

The network chose to cancel the upcoming Paul-starring season of The Bachelorette, which was set to premiere this past Sunday, after horrifying 2023 video of Paul hurling chairs at her ex Dakota Mortensen while her young daughter howled in horror.

But many of the promos for the new season remained splashed all over the internet, which of course led to quite a bit of mockery from people online.

The promos have since disappeared, having obviously been deleted.

But the fact that they dropped AFTER the scandal erupted had everyone making the same joke: Clearly The Bachelorette's social media manager did not get the memo!

ABC announced it was yanking season 22 of The Bachelorette on the afternoon of March 19, but new promos for the season still popped up on social media later that evening.

It all gave the impression that the chaos at Bachelorette HQ was so intense that obvious errors were slipping through the cracks.

Most content about the new season and Paul had been scrubbed from the show's website shortly after the announcement, according to Variety, including the season's trailer, Paul's bio, the cast list, and an article promoting the preview special that aired after the Oscars on March 15.

But the trailer and many similar promos remained live on X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok well into the afternoon and evening of March 19 and into morning of March 20.

Variety reports that much of this content was posted just hours before the announcement that the season would be pulled, suggesting the marketing team was given very little heads-up.

Even one of Bachelor Nation's own, Adam Gottschalk, a former contestant on both The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, couldn't help but drag ABC for the error.

In the comments of a trailer that was still live on Instagram on March 20, Gottschalk commented:

"It’s not too late to delete 😬😬"

That post was later tacked with a community note explaining the season had been canceled and which linked to statement by Disney, which read in part:

“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family.”

The promo has only intensified the scandal, which has had many calling ABC's and Disney's judgment into question for casting Paul in the first place.

The Paul scandal is a true mess for ABC and parent company Disney, which just came under new leadership on Wednesday, March 18. The cancellation of the season will result in the company losing tens of millions of dollars.

But for a multi-billion company, that's a drop in the bucket.

The real loss is reputational, especially since ABC chose to cast Paul, a star of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, after she'd already been convicted of and plead guilty to the domestic violence charges stemming from the incident captured on video in 2023, before being cast on The Bachelorette.