Becca Kufrin told Matt James the question she'd ask contestants if she did " Bachelorette" again.- Kufrin told Insider that she would ask them who they had voted for in the
election . - Kufrin and her fiancé Garrett Yrigoyen split months after controversial social media posts.
When it was time for Becca Kufrin to give Matt James some words of wisdom before his "Bachelor" stint began, the former "Bachelorette" star told him the one question she would ask her contestants if she could do the show all over again.
"I told him, look, if I was
"There's no way in hell they'd show that conversation," she added with a laugh. "But for me, especially living through this past year, it would be so important to me."
For a franchise as notoriously apolitical as 'The Bachelor ,' politics have played a huge role in Kufrin's own experience with the show
Before her season of "The Bachelorette" even aired in May 2018, Kufrin's winner and new fiancé Garrett Yrigoyen made headlines after it was revealed he had liked Instagram posts that mocked transgender people, immigrant children, and a school shooting victim.
Kufrin told Insider that Yrigoyen's Instagram activity came as a "total shock" to her.
"I was in this very weird limbo phase where I was happily engaged, I was on this high cause I was in love and the show had worked for me, but...I couldn't be vocal about it because I couldn't give away who I picked," she said.
"The pressure that I felt - and I think any lead can attest to this - is astronomical," Kufrin continued. "You have this huge franchise that is riding on your shoulders."
After Yrigoyen's Instagram likes were brought to light, Kufrin said the couple had many tough conversations
Kufrin was by Yrigoyen's side after her finale aired as he apologized for the Instagram likes on their "After the Final Rose" special. Still, she didn't hesistate to confront Yrigoyen amid the controversy, she said."Why did you do this and what was your thought process at this point?" Kufrin recalled asking him. "Has it changed? Can you learn? Can you grow? Can you move on from this?"
While in front of cameras, Kufrin supported her then-fiancé, now she feels differently about the situation.
"I've just really reined in what's simply acceptable to me and what's not," she told Insider.
Kufrin and Yrigoyen stayed together for more than two years, during which she said they were 'living in this white privilege bubble'
Despite the dust up, Kufrin and Yrigoyen remained together for more than two years.
And it wasn't until last year "when the pandemic hit and George Floyd was murdered that we started really having different types of conversations that we weren't necessarily having before," the reality star said.
Yrigoyen's Instagram activity made headlines once again when he posted in support of police as Black Lives Matter protests spread across the US in June.
A few days later, during her "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast, Kufrin told her co-host and fellow "Bachelorette" star Rachel Lindsay that she thought Yrigoyen's post was "tone deaf."
"Garrett is my fiancé and I love him to his core. I believe that he is a good person," she said. "I don't think he meant it in a malicious way…I do think it was tone deaf and it was the wrong time, and message, and sentiment."
Three months later, Kufrin announced that she and Yrigoyen had broken off their engagement.
Kufrin told Insider that the couple's split didn't come down to one Instagram post. But she had spent the summer asking herself tough questions about their differences.
"I was like...what's important to me? What's important to him?" she recalled. "Are we going to be able to make a lasting relationship for a lifetime off of our differences?"
Kufrin continued, "How are we going to raise kids? What kinds of conversations do we want to be having with those children? Can I still stay in this relationship and live with myself and feel that it's the right decision for me and my future children?"
Kufrin told James to make sure he asks 'the right questions' during his own 'Bachelor' journey
Although Kufrin didn't ask many of the tough questions during her run on "The Bachelorette," back in 2018, she does have advice for the current "Bachelor," James, who's the first Black man in the position.
"I told him, 'When you get down to the girls you can actually picture starting a life with and introducing to your family, make sure you're asking the right questions for you," she recalled. "Just ... make sure you're not walking away from this experience with any of these women wishing you still had more time to get to know them or figure out who they were."
"The Bachelor" airs on Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.