Monday night’s episode of “The Bachelor” seemed to be going well, drama and head injuries aside. The contestants dating this season’s eligible man, Peter Weber, spent a group date modeling for a Cosmopolitan magazine photo shoot in the Costa Rican jungle. They picked out swimsuits, posed alongside a scenic backdrop of trees and waterfalls — and one woman, Victoria Fuller, was chosen to adorn the magazine’s March cover.
And then, trouble in paradise.
The magazine — in a letter from the editor, Jessica Pels, posted minutes after scenes from the date aired — said it would not publish the cover with Ms. Fuller, citing an ad campaign in which she modeled “White Lives Matter attire.”
“Unequivocally, the White Lives Matter movement does not reflect the values of the Cosmo brand,” Ms. Pels wrote. “We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, and any cause that fights to end injustices for people of color.”
When “The Bachelor” premiered in January, photos circulated on Twitter showing Ms. Fuller, 26, a medical sales representative from Virginia Beach, Va., posing in a blue “WLM” hat. Other apparel from the same, now-defunct Instagram account featured an altered version of a Confederate flag — which, in place of stars, featured tiny fish — the words “White Lives Matter” and a web address: “MarlinLivesMatter.com.”
George Lamplugh, who began selling the apparel out of his store on the Ocean City boardwalk in Maryland, said in an interview Tuesday via Facebook Messenger that the “White Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” items were “designed to promote the conservation of white and blue marlin” among the sport-fishing community.
Both phrases have been used to discount the “Black Lives Matter” movement, and the clothing raised questions about the appropriateness of the name and whether it concealed another meaning.
Ms. Pels acknowledged the reports of the campaign’s origins in the letter, but said that did not change the decision: “In my view, the nature of the organization is neither here nor there — both phrases and the belief systems they represent are rooted in racism and therefore problematic.”
Representatives for ABC and “The Bachelor” did not comment. As of Monday night’s episode, Ms. Fuller was still a contestant on this season, which was filmed last fall.
Ms. Fuller will still appear inside hard copies of the magazine, which have already been printed, Ms. Pels wrote. She also appears in two photos on Cosmopolitan’s website, accompanying the magazine’s interview with Mr. Weber.
“The Bachelor” has had issues with its contestants’ pasts before. Last year, with Hannah Brown’s season of “The Bachelorette,” the show began releasing the list of contestants in advance of the premiere, in what seemed to be an attempt to crowdsource contestant background checks. Thirty-three names and photos were released for Mr. Weber’s season, but only 30 women remained by the premiere.
“I think, for lack of having a better process, two seasons into trying it this way, it’s as good as we have,” Chris Harrison, the show’s longtime host, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in January. “We’re trying to evolve as well, and giving everybody a chance to see who’s on the show and hear anything that’s out there; we do our best to do our due diligence.”
Ms. Pels, who went to Costa Rica for the photo shoot, wrote in the letter that she did not know much about the contestants while filming the episode — details about the season, she wrote, were as “closely guarded as nuclear codes.”
“When my team and I flew down to Costa Rica for our challenge, we weren’t told who our models were going to be,” she wrote. “We didn’t even meet them until we were all on camera on set, ready to start our shoot.”
All she knew about the contestants, Ms. Pels added, “were their first names and the energy they conveyed through the camera lens.”
