ABC/ Bob D’Amico
The star of The Bachelorette’s second season, Meredith Phillips, is opening up about her time on the show and has revealed to Reality Steve that she was drugged and sexually assaulted while filming the hit reality series in late 2003.
Phillips spoke to Reality Steve, who is known for having all the inside details on each season of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette before they air, on the newest episode of his podcast. When host Steve Carbone asked her what the hardest part of filming was, Phillips hesitated several times before she said, “Besides being always really tired…and some of the producers were…how do I say this…helpful but not helpful in terms of trying to make me relax.”
When Carbone asked her what she meant, she responded, “Normally [I] wouldn’t really talk about this, but I’m going to tell you because it’s bothered me for years,” and added that she had been “roofied” and “kind of accosted.”
Phillips went on to explain,
“By a masseuse that a producer hired to come into my room and give me a massage. And she said, ‘OK, I’m gonna give you a pill. And I said, ‘OK.’ Well, I just assumed it was an aspirin or a Tylenol or something to loosen up my back. It definitely wasn’t that. That’s for sure.
“The last thing I remember — she was in the tub with me and she was rubbing my back and she was rubbing areas that she probably shouldn’t have. Then I was put in bed…I woke up naked. Don’t remember much…I wasn’t even drinking…so…yeah,” she said.
When asked why Phillips never talked about the incident or reported it when she was on the show, she said she “wanted to protect the franchise, which is f—ed-up.”
“This is hard for me to talk about. I think I’ve put it somewhere else in my brain so when you bring this up, it’s definitely right there in the forefront as we’re speaking,” she said. “I remember everything until a certain point and when the pill kicked in I literally couldn’t even move my body, so I have no idea what the pill was at all.”
Phillips went on to explain that at the time she did consider leaving the show but wanted to finish what she started and things were difficult having signed a contract.
She went on to choose Ian McKee who proposed, but the two ended their engagement a year later.
A spokesperson for ABC said they had no comment, as did a spokesperson for the production company, Warner Bros.
Season 14 of The Bachelorette, starring Becca Kufrin, premieres Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.