As ABC’s retrospective series “The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!” kicks off Monday with Sean Lowe‘s installment, his now-wife Catherine Giudici is reflecting on her time on Season 17 in 2013, revealing that she thought she was only cast to fill a POC quota.
“When I was originally cast, I was very flattered but somewhat grounded by the fact that I would be one of the faces that represented people of color. I knew that one of the reasons I was probably chosen was because I was Filipino,” Giudici wrote on Instagram on Sunday.
The graphic designer admitted she “counted myself out to be his fiancée because of what I assumed Sean liked” and because she believed she was “there just to check a box.” However, she added, “I ended up with so much more.”
“I became present with the process and as he started noticing me for who I really was, I allowed this experience to open myself up to the possibility of being fully loved and appreciated for all that I was,” she continued. “I ended up getting to represent a mixed race community, I found Christ (I LOVE my testimony!) and marrying the most amazing man I’ve ever known. I’d say doing this show was one of the best things that ever happened to me.❤️”
SEE Here are the seasons that will be featured in ‘The Bachelor’s’ summer retrospective series
She concluded with a plea to fans: “Don’t count yourself out. You are destined to do bigger things than just check a box.”
Giudici and Lowe tied the knot in 2014 and have three children, Samuel, 3, Isaiah, 2, Mia, 5 months. Lowe is the only Bachelor in 24 seasons who is still with his final pick. “The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!”, which will revisit 10 memorable installments in franchise history, will condense their season-long love story into a three-hour episode on Monday.
Giudici’s comments comes as Season 13 Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay has been calling on the franchise to fix its diversity problem in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests following George Floyd‘s death. Lindsay, the franchise’s only black lead in 18 years and 40 combined seasons, wants to see a black Bachelor for the 25th season and said last week that she’ll step away from the franchise if it doesn’t address this long-standing issue.
“At this point, you’re seeing what’s happening, the franchise is seeing what’s happening — the higher-ups — how do you not feel like you’re contributing to it? How do you not fee like, ‘OK, at this point, the world is watching, we need to change something’? And it shouldn’t have taken this to push you to do that, but you can’t look at what’s happening and not think, ‘We have to do something as well,'” she said on the “Bachelor Party” podcast. “I can’t continue if I don’t see some sort of change.”
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