For The First Time, The Bachelor Has An Openly LGBTQ Contestant

Critics of The Bachelor often decry its homogeny, but this season already has a major difference in the contestants. On Sunday night’s preview episode for Nick Viall’s season, ABC gave viewers pretty predictable clips. For the record, Viall is not giving up on love. Yawn. There are crying women. Yawn. However, one stood out: one of the contestants, Jaimi, revealed that she’d previously been in a relationship with a woman.

"Nick was really receptive to my past relationship with my ex-girlfriend..It felt good to kind of set the stage for the rest of my time here,” she said. Just how receptive? Editors cleverly inserted a shot of Viall and Jaimi making out to show just how into her he was. This isn’t to say that there’s never been an LGBTQ contestant on the Bachelor franchise. In fact, contestants Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon are now in a relationship. Jaimi is just the first to be openly bisexual during filming. Is this a major step in Bachelor inclusivity? Having an openly bisexual contestant is definitely a significant step in that direction. We will have to see exactly how producers depict Jaimi's bisexuality — and how long she sticks around — to know for sure what kind of impact she will have on the show.

Check out the clip, kiss and all, below.