Becca and Garrett sat down for their first major press call the morning after The Bachelorette finale aired, and you’d think that most of the questions would be about the newly engaged couple. Nope––most of the press outlets were way more interested in Garrett’s controversial behavior on social media. Yikes. It doesn’t seem like that apology he posted in May did anything to prevent this sort of media blow-up.
Garrett reminded everyone of the apology when asked whether he had considered reaching out to Parkland student David Hogg, who was included in one of the memes Garrett liked. “I just issued that apology on my Instagram,” Garrett said, “I stand by everything that I said on there and I’m just trying to grow and be a better person. I know I made some mistakes and I recognize those mistakes and I’m just trying to be better and move forward but I apologize and I’m sorry to anyone that I hurt or offended.” Some of the outlets weren’t satisfied, and pressured Garrett for his opinion on Hogg. “I don’t believe David Hogg is a crisis actor,” Garrett clarified.
So, how exactly is Garrett learning from this experience? “I’m starting to read the posts now, and going through them, where as before I would just sort of scroll through and double tap the images, so now I’m reading into things before I’m supporting them.” Next time you get annoyed at your boyfriend for liking a random pic of some other girl, remember that Garrett literally managed to like a bunch of extremely controversial posts and not even notice.
One of them even took a jab at the transgender community in the form of a meme about Cailtyn Jenner, which made one journalist ask Garrett about his views on transgender people. “You know, I’m just open-minded to everybody,” he said, “I grew up in a very open family that was welcoming of everyone and I still stand by that today that I’m open and accepting of everybody.”
Where does Becca fall into all of this? It’s no secret that the Season 14 Bachelorette is a little more liberal than her fiancé––her Twitter header is literally a picture of Joe Biden. When questioned about how some of his Instagram likes went against Becca’s beliefs, Garrett shut down the idea that Becca has “changed [his] ideas on some of [the topics included in the posts].” “It was more about going through and recognizing that my likes could potentially be offending or hurting people’s feelings,” he said, “Now I’m just paying attention to the things that I’m liking, and going from there.” It’s good that Garrett is becoming more conscientious about his behavior on social media now that he’s a public figure, but it’s also good that he accepts the fact that he and Becca have different political beliefs. It shouldn’t be a relationship requirement that one partner has to force the other to agree with them 100% of the time.
Let’s take a step back––is it even fair to judge someone based on what they double tap while they’re killing time waiting in line for coffee? Becca doesn’t think so. And when it comes to Garrett being a good fiancé, her opinion is the only one that matters. “I think people just need to be open minded to everyone and when you use social media to create judgment of somebody, that’s just a small sampling,” she said. “In this specific case with Garrett, I got to know him aside from social media and truly as a person, and I can only hope that people do that not only for me and Garrett, but for everyone that they encounter as well.” IDK, guys, but I think we should trust Becca on this one.