Two months after being forced to temporarily disable her Instagram account due to harassment from Bachelor and Bachelorette viewers, Rachel Lindsay has announced that she’s leaving her popular Bachelor Nation podcast, Bachelor Happy Hour, after 100 episodes. Lindsay, who co-hosted the podcast with fellow Bachelorettes Ali Fedotowsky and Becca Kufrin, said that while she’s “proud†of the work the women did, she realized that her mental well-being was taking a toll. “I’ve been struggling. That’s no secret, and it’s been really, really hard for me lately and a lot of the things that we’ve talked about on this podcast are also about taking care of yourself and finding your peace and protecting, protecting that peace and protecting your mental health,†Lindsay explained on April 27’s episode. “So for me, I just feel like I’ve come to the end of doing the podcast. I’m definitely closing the door, but I’m not like locking it and throwing away the key. It’s just, I have to, for me, walk away.†She added, to her current co-host Kufrin, “I will be supporting you from a distance.â€
While Variety notes that Lindsay’s departure means she no longer has a standing contract with the Bachelor franchise, she has consciously been exploring non-rose-affiliated creative endeavors over the past year. In addition to co-hosting a Ringer podcast about Black culture, Higher Learning, Lindsay also serves as a correspondent for Extra — the latter of which garnered significant attention in February, when her interview with Chris Harrison prompted the host to temporarily exit the franchise due to his defense of historical racism. The interview’s aftermath of reckoning became so severe for Lindsay, in fact, that the show’s producers had to issue a statement to condemn racist fans for cyberbullying her. She returned to Instagram in early March and accepted Harrison’s apology for his words.