"The Bachelor" contestant Rachel Lindsay will be the next "Bachelorette," becoming the first African-American to star in the franchise, it was revealed on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
Lindsay, an attorney from Texas, can currently be seen on the 21st season of "The Bachelor."
ABC made the announcement earlier than usual, as Lindsay has not yet been eliminated by "Bachelor" Nick Viall, who gave her the coveted "first impression rose" during the season premiere.
"Yes, it is [a spoiler] but you know, we're a couple weeks out from filming. We're ready to get this started," she told Kimmel. "I'm ready to find love, find a husband!"
The casting comes just a few months after ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey told reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that she hoped to bring more diversity to the series. One way to do so, she noted, was to "increase the pool of diverse candidates in the beginning."
"The show has been very much in a cycle where the first runner-up in one cycle becomes the person who leads the next cycle, and it's worked very well for us because the audience feels really engaged in helping to choose that candidate," she said. "So I think what we would like to try to do is just widen the pool of choices."
