Names and faces
■ The first season of “The Bachelor” to feature a Black leading man (Matt James) has generated a racial controversy whose first casualty appears to be host Chris Harrison. After defending a contestant’s history of racially questionable actions, he announced via Instagram on Saturday that he would be “stepping aside” for an undisclosed period, including the post-finale special, “After the Final Rose.” Harrison, who is white, has hosted the show and several spin-offs since it debuted in 2002. “I have spent the last few days listening to the pain my words have caused, and I am deeply remorseful. My ignorance did damage to my friends, colleagues and strangers alike. I have no one to blame but myself for what I said and the way I spoke,” he wrote. “By excusing historical racism, I defended it. I invoked the term ‘woke police,’ which is unacceptable. I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was so wrong.” One of the leading contestants on the current season, Rachael Kirkconnell, who is white, had come under fire on social media. TikTok user Maddy Bierster wrote, “girlieeee, remember when you bullied me in high school for liking black guys???” Another user, The Feminist Mama, attacked Kirkconnell for her apparent conservative political leanings, but also for liking Instagram photos with Confederate flags in them and dressing up as an American Indian. Recently, a 2018 photo surfaced that may be Kirkconnell at a plantation-themed fraternity formal. James, who had said on the show that he was “falling in love” with Kirkconnell, urged caution regarding the accusations. On Tuesday, Harrison was interviewed by former “Bachelorette” contestant Rachel Lindsay, who is Black, on “Extra.” When Lindsay called the frat party photo of Kirkconnell “not a good look,” Harrison asked, “Is it (not) a good look in 2018 or is it not a good look in 2021? “My guess? These girls got dressed up and went to a party and had a great time, they were 18 years old. Now, does that make it OK? I don’t know, Rachel, you tell me. Were we all looking through (that lens) in 2018?”
■ Ashley Judd has recounted a painful ordeal that she believes almost cost her a leg after tripping in a Congolese rainforest and having to be evacuated by motorbike. In one of two Instagram Live videos hosted Friday by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the actor said she was stuck on the ground for five hours with a “badly misshapen leg,” biting a stick because of pain, and “howling like a wild animal.” Judd was injured when she and researchers were up early in a rainforest looking for bonobos when she tripped over a log and the fall shattered her tibia. She was carried out of the forest in a hammock and back to camp. Then she was evacuated by motorbike, with a driver steering and another man “holding the top part of my shattered tibia together.” That trip lasted six hours. She described it as a “catastrophic accident” and added that she “nearly lost my leg.” She conducted the interview from a hospital bed in South Africa and revealed that if she wasn’t a famous actor, she thinks she might have lost not just her leg but her life during the 55-hour ordeal.