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  • Gemini Faces Class-Action Suit Over Prediction Market Pivot, Plummeting Stock Price

    Gemini Faces Class-Action Suit Over Prediction Market Pivot, Plummeting Stock Price

    In brief

    • Gemini is being sued by shareholders for allegedly misleading investors and hiding its pivot to prediction markets.
    • Founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are accused of overstating the viability of Gemini’s crypto business.
    • The lawsuit links these claims to the company’s sharp stock decline.

    Crypto exchange Gemini is facing a class action lawsuit from shareholders who claim the company illegally failed to disclose its pivot into prediction markets—and overstated the viability of its struggling core business.

    The federal suit, filed this week in the Southern District of New York, alleges Gemini and its founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, materially misled investors in the build-up to taking the company public last fall.

    Gemini “overstated the viability of its core business as a crypto platform” and “overstated its commitment to and/or the viability of growing its business through expanding its international operations,” the lawsuit claims.

    The shareholders further argue that Gemini withheld information that would have shown the company was poised for “an expensive and disruptive restructuring.” Indeed, in February, the exchange laid off over a quarter of its staff and fully exited Europe and Australia, saying that it planned to lean on AI to boost company efficiency.

    That same day, the Winklevoss twins announced the company planned to make its new prediction market platform “front-and-center” for users. Plans for this significant pivot were also improperly concealed when Gemini went public months prior in September, the shareholders allege.

    Gemini did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment on the case.

    Since Gemini went public six months ago, the company’s stock (Nasdaq: GEMI) has lost nearly 85% of its value. In the same period, Bitcoin has shed some 40% of its price. Gemini shareholders insist the damage to Gemini’s stock has much to do with the company’s alleged failure to disclose the state of its businesses and its future plans.

    “As a result of defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the company’s securities, Plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” the complaint reads.

    On Thursday, Gemini shares rose nearly 7% in after-hours trading after the company reported more stable revenue streams in 2025, and signaled success from its cost-cutting efforts—though it also reported a $582.8 million net loss for 2025.

    Gemini’s stock is down 5.8% on the day Friday, as of this writing, to $5.66.

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  • SXSW 2026: The 8 Best Things We Watched in Austin, From a Semi-Suicidal Charlie Day to a Talking Fox Played by Olivia Colman

    SXSW 2026: The 8 Best Things We Watched in Austin, From a Semi-Suicidal Charlie Day to a Talking Fox Played by Olivia Colman

    Though this year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival was an abbreviated, seven-day affair, filmmakers still brought Austin’s clap-happy crowds an assortment of film and TV titles full of blood, laughter and tears to complement their tacos and barbecue.

    It was a strong year for the SXSW headliners section, which is populated with studio-backed titles and celebrity names. Three of them made our best-of-fest list: Boots Riley’s Keke Palmer-led sci-fi comedy “I Love Boosters,” Jorma Taccone’s comedic thriller “Over Your Dead Body” starring Jason Segel and Samara Weaving and the horror comedy “They Will Kill You” from Kirill Sokolov, starring Zazie Beetz as its murderous heroine. Notice a theme? SXSW is best known for its love of gory humor.

    SXSW officially added TV to its title and its list of priorities a few years back, and no series on the 2026 lineup justified that move more than “The Comeback.” Created by Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow, with Kudrow starring as a washed-up reality TV star, the world premiere of the third and final season after a decade-long hiatus was a welcome presence at the fest.

    One the documentary front, our standout was Netflix’s “Noah Kahan: Out of Body,” soon to premiere on Netflix. Our other picks — “The Fox,” “Kill Me” and “Their Town” — are smartly written indies still seeking distribution.

    For more on our offbeat favorites from the weirdest stop on the festival circuit, read on.

  • ‘Baywatch’ Adds Nadia Gray to Recurring Cast

    ‘Baywatch’ Adds Nadia Gray to Recurring Cast

    Fox‘s hotly anticipated “Baywatch” reboot has added Nadia Gray as a recurring guest star, Variety has confirmed.

    Gray will play Lisa, an EMT and partner to the team of lifeguards bounding down Venice Beach. The character is said to have a particular affinity for one person on the Baywatch squad. The actor joins a previously-announced ensemble of Stephen Amell, Brooks Nader, Hassie Harrison, Shay Mitchell, Jessica Belkin, Thaddeus LaGrone, Livvy Dunne and Noah Beck.

    Gray will next be seen in a supporting lead role in the indie “Paradise Disturbed,” opposite Holt McCallany (“The Iron Claw”). Her previous include roles on the CBS-OWN series “All Rise,” opposite Wilson Bethel. Additional credits include a supporting role in the top-rated Netflix film “Bright,” starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, and a recurring part on NBC’s “Days of our Lives.”

    Gray is represented by Adrian Hamerski at Brave Artists Management and lawyer Adam Vitabile at Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof and Fishman.

    Other recurring stars booked for this new round of “Baywatch” include Ashley Moore, Kylar Miranda, Luke Eisner and Charlie McElveen. Paparazzi has been swarming the production’s early days filming in Los Angeles.

    Amell will star as Hobie Buchannon, described as the “wild child we all loved from the original series” who “is now a Baywatch Captain, following in the footsteps of his legendary father, Mitch,” per an official synopsis. “Hobie’s world is turned upside down when Charlie, the daughter he never knew, shows up on his doorstep, eager to carry on the Buchannon family legacy and become a Baywatch lifeguard alongside her dad.”

  • Stopping Ozempic, Wegovy May Reverse Cardiovascular Benefits

    Stopping Ozempic, Wegovy May Reverse Cardiovascular Benefits

    Light waves at sea during sunsetShare on Pinterest
    Stopping GLP-1s can quickly reverse the cardiovascular benefits gained while taking them. Image Credit: the_burtons/Getty Images
    • A recent study found that stopping GLP-1s, such as Ozempic or Wegovy, can reverse the cardiovascular benefits they provide.
    • The findings show that stopping the medications for as little as 6 months raises the risk of heart attack and stroke.
    • GLP-1s have been proven to offer not only benefits for type 2 diabetes and weight loss, but also cardiovascular health.

    GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have become popular medications for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity. This class of medications may also offer significant cardiovascular benefits.

    A recent study published in BMJ Medicine found that when people stop using GLP-1s, they not only tend to regain weight, but they also may experience an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and even death.

    “There is enormous exuberance about starting GLP-1 drugs, but not nearly enough attention to what happens when people stop,” senior study author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a Washington University School of Medicine clinical epidemiologist and chief of the Research and Development Service at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, said in a press release.

    The researchers noted that many people who use these medications quit them after a short time, typically due to cost, side effects, or shortages.

    They wanted to understand the consequences of discontinuing GLP-1 use, particularly on cardiovascular health.

    The study analyzed 333,687 veterans. It compared 132,551 individuals who were prescribed a GLP-1 medication to help manage type 2 diabetes with 201,136 who were prescribed sulfonylureas, another type of medication for diabetes. The researchers followed the participants’ outcomes for 3 years.

    Sulfonylureas include the medications:

    The researchers checked participants’ GLP-1 treatment status every 6 months.

    Over the course of the study, 26% of participants stopped taking the medication, and 23% had an interruption of 6 months or more, followed by resuming treatment.

    The research team found a positive relationship between continuous use of GLP-1s and fewer cardiovascular events.

    “GLP-1 drugs likely help cardiovascular health through several pathways at once, not just by lowering weight,” said Robert Glatter, MD, attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/ Northwell, who was not involved in the study.

    “They improve blood sugar control, modestly lower blood pressure, may improve lipid and vascular function, and seem to reduce inflammation and atherosclerotic plaque growth and progression,” Glatter told Healthline.

    “Some evidence also points to direct protective effects on the heart and blood vessels independent of weight loss. In practical terms, they appear to reduce the underlying process of inflammation that drives heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure over time,” he explained.

    At the end of the study, compared with those who took sulfonylureas, participants who continuously used GLP-1s over the 3-year period had the most pronounced risk reduction. This group saw 18% fewer major cardiovascular events.

    Participants who had taken GLP-1s for 2 or 2.5 years before discontinuing use for the remainder of the study also saw a significant reduction in risk of 7% and 15%, respectively.

    Those who took GLP-1s for 18 months or less before discontinuing did not experience a significant reduction in risk.

    The study showed that an interruption of GLP-1 use of just 6 months before resuming treatment was enough to significantly decrease the cardiovascular benefit. It led to a 4% to 8% increase in risk compared with those with continuous use.

    Discontinued use of 1 to 2 years without resuming resulted in a 14% to 22% increased risk of a cardiovascular event, compared with continuous use.

    This shows that cardiovascular benefits gained while using GLP-1s are quickly lost when a person stops taking the medication.

    “The main message is that GLP-1 therapy behaves more like a long-term risk-reduction treatment than a short-term fix. The study reinforces a broader lesson in chronic disease management: benefits that accumulate slowly can be lost surprisingly fast when treatment is interrupted, so persistence and follow-up truly matter,” said Glatter.

    If you are taking a GLP-1 medication and are considering discontinuing it, you should first speak with your healthcare professional.

    “When patients use GLP-1 medications primarily for weight loss, I caution them that it is very easy to regain the weight when these medications are discontinued and subsequently lose the health benefits gained from achieving a healthy weight,” said Mir Ali, MD, bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, who was not involved in the study.

    If you suddenly stop taking a GLP-1, like a semaglutide, you may experience withdrawal symptoms. These may include nausea, increased appetite, weight gain, and cardiovascular changes, like elevated blood pressure.

    Tapering off the medication slowly may allow your body to gradually adjust to having less support from the GLP-1 medication.

    It is also important to maintain your healthy eating habits and get regular physical activity when stopping these medications. This helps you maintain your weight loss.

    “Obesity should be viewed as a chronic, long-term disease that requires long-term treatment,” said Ali.

  • Pinterest CEO says teens under 16 should be banned from social media (but not Pinterest)

    Pinterest’s CEO has thrown his support behind an Australia measure banning social media for younger teens and is calling for governments around the world to implement similar bans. “Social media, as it’s configured today, is not safe for young people under 16,” Ready writes in a piece published by Time. “We need a clear standard: no social media for teens under 16, backed by real enforcement, and accountability for mobile phone operating systems and the apps that run on them.”

    Ready is one of the highest-profile tech CEOs to come out in favor of a broad ban on social media for teens. That may also seem like a bold stance for someone who runs a platform with a user base that’s more than 50 percent Gen Z, but Ready doesn’t think that ban should apply to Pinterest. Pinterest, as he notes, already bars teens under 16 from accessing messaging features and other social features. It also makes teen accounts private by default.

    A spokesperson for Pinterest confirmed the company has no plans to change its own policies regarding users under 16, and said Pinterest considers itself a “visual search platform” not social media. Pinterest, like most social media and social media-adjacent companies, doesn’t allow users under 13 to sign up.

    Social media or not, Pinterest has encountered child safety-related issues in the past. In 2023, NBC News reported that Pinterest’s recommendation algorithm was surfacing photos and videos of young girls to adults who were “seeking” such content. Some of those users had created Pinterest boards featuring images of young girls with titles like “sexy little girls,” their investigation found. The company made profiles for teens under 16 private and “not discoverable” six months later.

    According to Ready, Pinterest’s popularity with younger users is proof its policies are also good for the company’s business. “Our experience shows that prioritizing safety and well-being doesn’t push young people away; it builds trust,” he writes.

  • Can stablecoin payments reshape Visa and Mastercard strategies through 2026?

    Can stablecoin payments reshape Visa and Mastercard strategies through 2026?

    Markets weigh how stablecoin payments reshape Visa Mastercard strategies as AI rails and fintech links emerge through 2026.

    Card networks are racing to defend profits as stablecoin payments, AI agents, and new fintech rails challenge the economics of traditional credit and debit transactions.

    Card networks under pressure from markets and regulators

    The big payment groups have pulled back sharply from record highs. Visa has fallen 19%, Mastercard 18%, and American Express 23% from prior peaks, reflecting mounting disruption risks.

    The selloff is driven by two key concerns. First, President Donald Trump has floated a proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, which could compress yields. Second, investors increasingly fear that stablecoin rails may erode the card industry business model.

    Stablecoin technology allows merchants to settle transactions faster and at lower cost than on legacy card systems. This potential shift has unsettled markets. However, the incumbents are not simply defending their turf; they are retooling their strategies to plug into the new infrastructure.

    Mastercard’s record crypto move and Visa’s AI-enabled rails

    Mastercard is leaning in with its largest crypto acquisition to date. The company agreed to purchase BVNK, a specialist in stablecoin infrastructure, in a deal worth up to $1.8 billion, marking the biggest stablecoin-focused transaction on record.

    Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Sanjay Sakhrani called the acquisition “a critical, long-term strategic move” that positions Mastercard as a conduit between traditional card rails and emerging blockchain-based settlement systems.

    Visa is also executing an aggressive pivot. Its contactless payment stack, which can integrate on-chain settlement, now accounts for 80% of all in-person transaction volume worldwide. Moreover, Visa launched Visa CLI, a command-line interface that lets artificial intelligence agents trigger card payments directly through terminal environments.

    AI agents and the Machine Payments Protocol

    The competitive landscape is expanding beyond card issuers. This week, Stripe and blockchain startup Tempo unveiled the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard designed so AI systems can autonomously buy services such as APIs, data streams, and compute capacity.

    The protocol batches numerous micro-transactions into consolidated settlements on a blockchain. That said, its launch underscores how programmable money could bypass legacy billing flows if adoption scales among developers and enterprises.

    Tempo raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation in October 2025. Chief executive Matt Huang, a Paradigm co-founder who also sits on Stripe’s board, is positioning the company as a core infrastructure provider for autonomous commerce.

    Early supporters of the protocol include Anthropic, OpenAI, DoorDash, Shopify, Revolut, plus both Visa and Mastercard. In this context, the card rivals are acting as collaborators, seeking relevance inside the next generation of machine-driven payments.

    Scale of agentic commerce and stablecoin volumes

    Morgan Stanley forecasts that agent-driven online buying could represent $385 billion of U.S. e-commerce by 2030, highlighting the potential size of autonomous transaction flows. Moreover, on-chain settlement is already large today.

    Stablecoin transfer volume hit $33 trillion in 2025, expanding 72% year over year. This explosive growth reinforces why traditional issuers view stablecoin payments as both a strategic threat and an integration opportunity.

    Interchange fees and the risk of AI-driven disintermediation

    A February 2026 note from Citrini Research warned that AI agents, optimized to minimize transaction costs, could systematically avoid card rails. They may target the 2–3% interchange fees charged by Visa and Mastercard and instead route flows over networks where costs are fractions of a cent.

    Visa processed $17 trillion in annual volume, underscoring how even small share losses could be material. However, the valuation backdrop already reflects some of this risk, with earnings multiples compressing from historical peaks.

    At present, Mastercard and Visa trade at around 24x and 22x forward earnings respectively, both below their long-run averages. American Express sits near 16x forward earnings, further illustrating the sector’s de-rating as digital alternatives gain traction.

    Profit outlook and revenue trajectory for 2026

    Despite macro headwinds, analysts have nudged their 2026 earnings expectations higher. Wall Street now projects low-teen percentage growth in sector-wide earnings per share, supported by close to 10% revenue expansion.

    Combined revenue for the group is projected to climb toward $163 billion in 2026. Moreover, investors expect the big processors to lean on pricing power, cross-border volume, and technology partnerships to sustain that growth even as new rails emerge.

    Stripe’s expanding role in payment infrastructure

    Stripe itself is becoming a direct competitor to the card networks in infrastructure control. The company processed $1.9 trillion in payment volume during 2025, underscoring its scale as an internet-native processor.

    To deepen its blockchain capabilities, Stripe acquired stablecoin specialist Bridge for $1.1 billion. This crypto acquisitions deal reflects a strategy to embed programmable settlement directly into its platform rather than paying card networks for access to their systems.

    As chief executive Matt Huang noted, “agentic payments is very early, and we still are figuring out the best way to structure these.” However, as frameworks like the Machine Payments Protocol mature, they may push more transaction logic off traditional card stacks.

    Strategic crossroads for card networks and stablecoins

    The rise of stablecoin payments is forcing Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Stripe to rethink how value is captured across settlement layers. Card groups are betting that partnerships, crypto integrations, and AI tooling will keep them central to digital commerce rather than sidelined by cheaper rails.

    For now, the sector still generates strong earnings and rising revenue, but pricing power and interchange economics face mounting tests. The next few years will show whether legacy networks successfully absorb blockchain innovation or whether autonomous agents and open protocols redirect a meaningful share of global transaction flows.

  • Elon Musk misled investors during his Twitter takeover, jury finds

    A group of former Twitter investors have prevailed at a federal civil trial over Elon Musk’s actions amid his $44 billion acquisition of the social platform in 2022. A jury in San Francisco found Friday that tweets made by Musk about fake accounts on the platform had defrauded investors in the company. The jury sided with Musk on other allegations in the case.

    It’s not yet clear how much Musk will owe in damages as a result of the case but, as the Associated Press reports, it could amount to billions of dollars. Jurors calculated that shareholders should get “between about $3 and $8 per stock per day.”

    The class action lawsuit, one of several brought against Musk in the months following his takeover of the company, cited Musk’s tweets about fake accounts on the platform. Facing a sinking Tesla share price in the days after announcing he would buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, the suit said Musk made tweets and statements that were intentionally meant to drive down Twitter’s share price in an attempt to renegotiate or exit the deal.

    The suit called out Musk’s May 13, 2022, tweet that claimed the Twitter deal was “temporarily on hold” due to the number of fake accounts and bots on the platform, as well as one a few days later that suggested fake accounts might account for more than 20 percent of users. Twitter’s stock dropped significantly following the May 13 tweet.

    During the trial, Musk said the tweets were him “speaking his mind” and maintained that Twitter executives had “lied” about the number of bots on the platform, according to KQED. Former Twitter shareholders, on the other hand, said “they sold shares at deflated prices amid Musk’s public waffling.”

    Musk faced several lawsuits during and after his $44 billion takeover of the company. That includes other shareholder lawsuits related to his delay in disclosing his stake in the company, as well as one from former executives related to unpaid severance benefits (Musk later settled those claims). He also narrowly avoided a trial over his attempts to back out of the deal.

  • Allegations of Major Manipulation in an Altcoin Airdrop: One Person Received the Largest Share of the Tokens

    Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps has announced the detection of significant manipulation in the $ROBO token airdrop conducted by Fabric Protocol.

    According to the company’s findings, a single entity gained control of approximately 40% of the total tokens distributed using a method called a “syllabic attack.”

    According to Bubblemaps data, over 7,000 new wallets were created in the two months prior to the token’s launch. These wallets were found to have purchased similar amounts of Ethereum (ETH) from seven different cryptocurrency exchanges, exhibiting highly consistent on-chain behavior. It was then suggested that these funds were routed through three-tiered new wallets in an attempt to conceal the trail.

    These wallets participated in the airdrop following the $ROBO token launch on February 27th, claiming a total of approximately 199 million $ROBO tokens. This amount reportedly represents 40% of the distribution and was worth approximately $8 million at the time of launch.

    The analysis reveals that high similarities in the funding method, timing, and transfer movements of the wallets indicate that the entire operation was organized by a single entity. However, Bubblemaps added that, based on the available data, there is no evidence linking these activities to the Fabric Protocol or OpenMind teams.

    Fabric Protocol aims to develop a robotics-focused network layer powered by the OpenMind infrastructure. The project raised a total of $20 million in funding from leading investors such as Coinbase and Pantera. The $ROBO token was distributed via an airdrop at launch, representing 5% of the total supply.

    *This is not investment advice.

  • Platino Awards Xcaret Reveal 2026 Nominations: ‘Belén,’ ‘Los Domingos’ Lead Films With 11 Noms

    Platino Awards Xcaret Reveal 2026 Nominations: ‘Belén,’ ‘Los Domingos’ Lead Films With 11 Noms

    The stage is being set for the 13th annual Platino Awards Xcaret, a ceremony that honors the best of Ibero-American film and TV.

    Leading the film nominations with 11 each are Dolores Fonzi’s Belén (Argentina) and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s Los Domingos (Spain), followed by Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (Brazil) and Oliver Laxe’s Sirât (Spain) with eight and seven, respectively. On the TV side, Bruno Stagnaro’s The Eternaut (Argentina) leads the nominees with 13 noms followed by the Rafael Cobos, Fran Araujo and Alberto Rodriguez-created series The Anatomy of a Moment (Spain) with 12.

    For a fourth time in its 13-year history, the Platino Awards will take place inside the Gran Tlachco Theater at Xcaret Park in Riviera Maya on May 9. Xcaret, a luxury enclave home to hotels, restaurants, experiences and adventure in the heart of the resort town, welcomes the awards back after a year away in the event’s other home base of Madrid, Spain. The show will be broadcast across the Americas. Nominations were unveiled today at the Telemundo Center in Miami.

    “This year, we return to Mexico, a beloved country that has shared so many adventures and successful initiatives with these awards. After 13 years, having the honor and responsibility of recognizing the best in Spanish and Portuguese-language film and television is a challenge we gladly embrace with commitment, year after year,” said Enrique Cerezo, who serves as executive president of the Platino Awards and president of EGEDA. “The privilege of bringing together all the talent from the world’s largest region in a joyful, diverse, enriching, and festive gathering is also a reward for everyone who makes up the great Platino family.”

    Competing for best film are It’s Still Night in Caracas (Venezuela), Belén (Argentina), Los Domingos (Spain), The Secret Agent (Brazil) and Sirât (Spain). Nominated in the best miniseries or TV series category are Anatomy of a Moment (Spain), Chespirito: Unintentionally (Mexico), The Eternaut (Argentina), and The Dead Women (Mexico). Best long-form series nominees are Fatal Beauty (Brazil), The Promise (Spain), Dreams of Freedom (Spain), and Velvet: The New Empire (United States).

    Vying for best director are Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Los Domingos), Dolores Fonzi (Belén), Kleber Mendonça Filho (The Secret Agent), and Oliver Laxe (Sirât). Best documentary film award nominees include Apocalypse in the Tropics (Brazil), Under the Flags, The Sun (Paraguay/Argentina), Flores para Antonio (Spain) and Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, Spain).

    Nominated for best actor on the film side are Alberto San Juan (The Dinner), Guillermo Francella (Homo Argentum), Ubeimar Ríos Gómez (A Poet), and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent). Singled out as best actress are Blanca Soroa and Patricia López Arnaiz (Los Domingos), Dolores Fonzi (Belén), and Natalia Reyes (One Night in Caracas).

    Álvaro Morte (Anatomy of a Moment), Javier Cámara (Jakarta), Leonardo Sbaraglia (Menem) and Ricardo Darín (The Eternaut) heard their names mentioned for best male performance in a miniseries or TV series, while Candela Peña (Fury), Carla Quílez (Jakarta), Griselda Siciliani (Envious) and Paulina Gaitán (The Dead Women) got nominated on the female side in the same category.

    Best supporting actor nominees include Álvaro Cervantes (Deaf), Edgar Ramírez (One Night in Caracas), Juan Minujín (Los Domingos) and Rodrigo Santoro (The Blue Trail), while best supporting actress nominees are Camila Pláate and Julieta Cardinali (Belén), Dira Paes (Manas) and Nagore Aranburu (Los Domingos).

    The 13th edition of the Platino Awards Xcaret is presented with support from Quintana Roo, Riviera Maya and Grupo Xcaret. Additional support comes from UN Tourism, the Ibero-American Film Academies and Institutes, WAWA and ICAA with sponsors AIE, Hertz, CREA SGR, L’Oréal, Mrs Greenfilm, Telemundo, Universo, TNT and HBO Max.

    For the full list of nominees, click here.

  • Former ‘Bachelorette’ Rachel Lindsay Says Taylor Frankie Paul Controversy Has “Completely Destroyed” ‘Bachelor’ Franchise: “It’s Over”

    Former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay doesn’t think the Bachelor franchise can survive Taylor Frankie Paul’s domestic violence controversy. 

    During a Thursday taping of the Bachelor Party podcast, the former franchise lead learned of ABC’s decision to pull The Bachelorette season 22 after a video leaked of Paul, depicting the events that led to her 2023 arrest. 

    Lindsay cut her two co-hosts off to share the news, admitting she had “chills.” She also explained that she thought the season was “over” after the video was released. 

    “I think it’s over. I was trying to think of a scenario where it could be different. Because this isn’t just, ‘Oh, we put it all on a person. This person did this.’ This is the system that allowed this to happen,” she said. “The name Bachelorette, Bachelor is tainted at this point. How do you move forward past that? You can’t.”

    ABC yanked Paul’s Bachelorette season on Thursday after a 2023 video of Paul engaging in a domestic dispute with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Dakota Mortensen was posted by TMZ. “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,” a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson said in a statement.

    Before the TMZ video, it was confirmed Monday that production on season five of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was paused amid a separate domestic incident involving Paul and Mortensen. A spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department told People there is an open “domestic assault investigation” between Paul and Mortensen. They added that “allegations have been made in both directions” and “contact was made with involved parties on [Feb.] 24th and 25th.”

    As of Friday, filming on season five of Mormon Wives is still paused until production’s investigation into the February incident between Paul and Mortensen, which is separate from the law enforcement investigation, concludes, which is expected to be by the end of next week, a source close to the situation told The Hollywood Reporter. 

    The Bachelorette season 13 star noted that there was prior backlash to Paul being named the next franchise lead, and that while “there was excitement, there was going to be a new audience, the traditional Bachelor viewers were already upset by this decision.” Lindsay pointed out that that hesitancy, combined with the ongoing controversy, may lead viewers to lose trust in the franchise as a whole.

    “So how do you trust this name — Bachelor, Bachelorette — that has meant something to people, moving forward? You don’t,” Lindsay explained. “You already questioned it when you moved Taylor Frankie Paul over [from Mormon Wives.] Now it is completely destroyed. Like, why did you guys think this was okay? That’s the question that needs to be answered. We’re never gonna get that from Taylor at this point.”

    “There’s no way under any brand, but particularly Disney, that you can proceed when this video comes out,” she explained earlier in the podcast, adding that she was originally keen on Paul’s casting. “It makes me go back to, there was a lot of outrage when she was cast, and I have to get onto myself for this. When she was cast, I was invigorated by it.”

    “We know that the typical Bachelorette, and I’m assuming they did this for her, goes through an STD background test, a psychological test and a criminal background test,” Lindsay added. “This is where I say I take blame. If you had asked me prior to this to explain, even though we saw episode one of season one that this domestic violence dispute happened, we didn’t see what we saw today that was released by TMZ, but we knew it happened. I didn’t do more research.” 

    On Friday, an NBC News report revealed that Paul’s Mormon Wives co-stars had a 30-minute Zoom call with three Disney executives including Rob Mills, executive vp unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, on March 7. There, they voiced concern about the alleged incident that took place in February between Paul and Mortensen.