Ex-'Bachelor' Host Compares Taylor Frankie Paul Saga to 2014 NFL Scandal

A former ESPN personality is taking the gloves off and hitting ABC hard, claiming the network "turned a blind eye" to Taylor Frankie Paul's alleged domestic abuse allegations, which have since been confirmed in the wake of a 2023 video in which she's seen attacking her then-boyfriend in front of her 5-year-old daughter.

Emmanuel Acho went on his YouTube show, Speakeasy, and compared ABC's handling of the Taylor Frankie Paul controversy to the scandal that rocked the NFL to its core in September 2014, when TMZ published video of then-Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice brutally assaulting his then-fiancée in an elevator of a New Jersey casino.

The video forced the Ravens to cut Rice, and the NFL indefinitely suspended him. Rice never played in the NFL again. Just months prior, domestic abuse allegations had only resulted in a two-game suspension.

Acho argues that, before they offered him the job to host the 25th season of The Bachelor: After the Rose special in February 2021, ABC looked into his background excruciatingly before handing him the keys, and he deduces that the network had to have looked into Taylor Frankie Paul in the same manner.

"Before they asked me to end up hosting it, severe background check after background check after background check. Not only do they do that, they give me a whole booklet in order to host just this one episode and debrief me on all of that," he says on his show. "Not only do they do that, they give me all of the DVDs of the packages from every character that I'm gonna have to talk to during the course of their season to make sure that I am well-prepared as they have completely studied me in my history.”

This extensive background check, Acho argues, is why he claims ABC had to have known about Taylor Frankie Paul's domestic abuse allegations, as well as the video TMZ unearthed this week, which swiftly killed Taylor Frankie Paul's season of The Bachelorette.

Acho says ABC "turned a blind eye," and only now made the decision to pull Taylor Frankie Paul's season of The Bachelorette because of the unearthed 2023 video.

As a one-time host of the Bachelor, here’s how I know the execs HAD to know about Taylor Frankie Paul's domestic violence history. ???? #bachelorette #bachelor pic.twitter.com/j2kmVMSiKQ

— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) March 20, 2026

"I say that to say the franchise knew everything you needed to know about this woman, and they turned a blind eye, and that is what, to me, is disgusting,” Acho says. “As soon as they found out video existed, they were like, ‘Uh, oh. We just got caught.’ And I’m tired of seeing it, because we saw it in the NFL, too. When Ray Rice hit his romantic partner, it was a two-game suspension. When the video came out, and we saw him knock her out in the elevator and drag her by her hair, he never played in the NFL again."

He implored, "Stop waiting for videos to be released to punish people when you already know the integral thing to do."