- "Bachelorette" star Sean McLaughlin opened up about his planned hometown date with star Charity Lawson.
- McLaughlin was eliminated shortly before the hometowns week of the dating show.
"Bachelorette" contestant Sean McLaughlin may not be in the running to receive the final rose from star Charity Lawson, but the 26-year-old told Insider in a recent interview that he had an "amazing" hometown date in mind for Lawson if he'd advanced that far.
"I had it all planned out," McLaughlin said, adding that his large extended family was "so excited to meet Charity."
The software sales representative went into detail about the dream hometown date in upstate New York with Lawson that never came to fruition.
"I grew up in the house that my mom grew up in... my parents bought it from my grandparents, so I lived on that street my entire life," McLaughlin explained. "I was gonna go to that street, take a look at the house, like basically explain my childhood."
"And then we were gonna go over to my Aunt Janet's house, and at my Aunt Janet's house, there was gonna be about 45 to 50 relatives there," he continued, adding that he was planning on jokingly downplaying the scope of the gathering to Lawson.
Per McLaughlin, at the party, his family "would've went crazy, and we would've had a nice day party there. And then maybe a nice dinner after that at this place down in Troy, where I'm from."
Unfortunately, he never got a chance to introduce Lawson to his family and show her around his childhood home, since he was eliminated in week five, shortly before the hometown dates and Fantasy Suites dates.
However, as Entertainment Weekly's Kristen Baldwin first pointed out in her recap of the New Orleans episode, McLaughlin's father Steve is a bit of a controversial figure. The Rensselaer County executive was accused of asking an intern to send him nude photos when he was a State Assemblyman in 2017; the elder McLaughlin called the accusations a "witch hunt" in a subsequent interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The politician was also acquitted earlier this year after being charged in a criminal case with grand larceny. As the Times-Union's Robert Gavin reported, Steve was accused of using $5,000 worth of campaign money for an illegal payout, and subsequently covering it up via falsified records.
In addition to his legal troubles, the elder McLaughlin regularly criticizes "crack heads," migrants, and progressives on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
A representative for Steve McLaughlin didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
—Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) June 27, 2023
—Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) August 14, 2023
When asked by Insider how his family, particularly his father, would have reacted to meeting Lawson – who's proudly described herself as the second "monoracial Black Bachelorette" — Sean said their meeting would have been "very special."
"I think people, like once they actually meet my family, they realize how loving and caring they actually are," Sean told Insider. "They were so excited to meet Charity. So I think it would've been incredible. She would've felt incredibly loved there, and welcome."
"The Bachelorette" airs Mondays on ABC.