Days before Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette was set to air, TMZ released footage of a violent incident between her and her ex, Dakota, from 2023. ABC pulled the season.

Together, Shannon and Tashmica talk through what the video shows and what it doesn’t, why one moment of volatility can’t tell us who is setting up a pattern of power and control, and who is surviving it. They unpack why the timing of the tape’s release matters. And they call out the very selective outrage of a Reality TV franchise like The Bachelor that has quietly welcomed accused abusers onto its stages season after season.

And here's the thing — we know they can do better, because they already have. In 2017, Bachelor in Paradise intervened immediately and shut down production for two weeks after a misconduct incident on set. Everyone went home. So this isn't about capability. It's about choice.

(Hint: if you want to hear more about what accountability on a reality TV set can look like — and what it costs when it doesn't show up — check out our ANTM episode: Aging Like Hot Ice Cream.)

This episode is about Taylor Frankie Paul. It’s also about every person in your life you’ve watched spiral without intervening. And it’s about what it would look like if we actually cared about getting this right.

Enjoying the pod? Subscribe here, and everywhere you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode. Come for the pop culture. Stay for the abolition.

New episodes available — listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. More episodes, show notes, and the whole archive — www.popagandapod.com

Come find us — we're @popagandapod on Instagram. Slide into our DMs. We mean it.

Grab some merch — shopaganda.sellfy.store — because looking good and staying abolitionist aren't mutually exclusive.

Thanks to our sponsors: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting.

Shannon Perez-Darby and Tashmica Torok dig into Adult Braces, Lindy West's new memoir, Adult Braces. The internet is in a tizzy about her 15-year partnership with Aham Oluo and the process of opening their relationship. We use the word 'process' intentionally. Polyamory is only one expression of how people and the terms of their most intimate relationships can and should transform over time.

Listen in as two pop culture besties discuss what happens when the terms of a relationship changes before everyone involved is ready to stretch that far. The rupture, the repair, and the public opinions of it all.

What does it mean when the person who built the door is also the one controlling who walks through it? Netflix's Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model pulls back the curtain on two decades of harm styled as opportunity—and Shannon and Tashmica are not letting Tyra off the hook.

This docuseries revisits the 2003–2018 run of America's Next Top Model through interviews with Tyra Banks, co-hosts Miss J, J. Manuel, and Nigel Barker, and several former contestants candidly telling their stories.

Tyra's current legacy project is hot ice cream. Which is, technically, incomplete ice cream. Tashmica has notes.

Shandy is a cycle two contestant whose sexual assault—filmed by the crew while she was too intoxicated to consent—was edited and broadcast as a cheating scandal.

Tyra Banks is the creator, executive producer, and subject of this documentary—a woman whose access to power has not translated into accountability, solidarity with Black women, or care for the people she claims to have uplifted.

And the industry is doing what it always does: making the person who was harmed responsible for the story.

What we keep coming back to:

• Shandy's story is an example of how the production team transformed an assault into a scandal—in real time, before she even understood what had happened to her
• The "diversity" Tyra built was a pinprick, not a door—and the show's own alumni confirm their careers were hurt, not helped, by being on it
• What Bachelor in Paradise did differently in 2017 shows exactly what it looks like to prioritize people over timelines—and how rare that actually is

Leaving us with: when someone uses their power to control who else gets in—and whose stories get told—are they opening the door, or are they the lock?

Content note: Sexual violence, anti-Black racism and colorism, disordered eating, dental coercion, stroke and disability discussed.

Pop Culture Homework

Watch: Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model (Netflix)

Hosts: Tashmica Torok & Shannon Perez-Darby

Subscribe and leave a 5-star review — it really helps others find the show. www.popagandapod.com | Merch: https://shopaganda.sellfy.store/

Sponsored by: The Accountable Communities Consortium and Aletheia Coaching & Consulting

Transcript available on Apple Podcasts