Well, it’s official: Garrett Yrigoyen and Becca Kufrin are now engaged. Yes, the 29-year-old medical sales rep was the guy who ultimately won Kufrin’s heart on this season of The Bachelorette, but their courtship’s been plagued with controversy. Shortly after The Bachelorette premiered in May, an alumnus of the franchise, Ashley Spivey, posted several screen shots to Twitter claiming Yrigoyen had “liked” bigoted posts on Instagram—including one that accused a school shooting survivor of being a crisis actor. Another post Yrigoyen reportedly double-tapped mocked young boys who wear makeup, and a third made an insensitive comment about liberal women. News of this Instagram activity quickly went viral.
Yrigoyen’s since apologized for his “likes,” but why did he follow those accounts in the first place? (From the screen shots, it appears the posts came from several different accounts, including @the4thamerican and @mericasupplyco.)
“I originally followed that account because I’m a patriotic guy and I love my country and I support everybody in the military,” he tells Glamour.com. “That’s why I initially followed them.” He did not specify which account he’s referring to.
On the After the Final Rose special last night, Yrigoyen apologized for offending people. After, many fans on Twitter voiced their concern that he didn’t denounce the content of the posts he liked, but Yrigoyen tells Glamour.com he understands the criticism. “Oh yeah, once I understood it better, I was as well,” Yrigoyen said when we asked him if he was offended by the posts after he looked at them closely.
“I didn’t realize the effect of a double tap or like on Instagram, so I put out an apology,” Yrigoyen said on After the Final Rose. “I didn’t mean to offend anybody. I apologize for that still. I’m very sorry. I didn’t meant to hurt anybody’s feelings or do anything like that. So, I stand by everything that I posted in my apology.”
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