Tayshia Adams of ‘The Bachelorette’ Makes Room for Mixed-Race Fans Like Me
By: Jada Gomez
Tags: TV, Culture, Bachelor Nation, The Bachelorette, Race

Momentum: I can imagine that you always get questions like, “What does X or Y mean to you as a Black woman, as the first Latina, as a biracial woman…” I could go on and on. And being mixed-race, I love so many things about myself that have nothing to do with race. What do you want people to know about you, about Tayshia, without any of those labels?

Tayshia Adams: Wow. I guess when I talk to myself at night or when I pray to God about what I want people to get from me, [it] is just to know I’m your girl next door, but I have such a big heart, and I truly care about people. It doesn’t matter who you are. And I think that I have gone through struggles in the past, and again, taking away from the entire race aspect of things, we could talk about finances, we could talk about just not feeling smart enough, we could talk about anything. And I feel like if I ever see anybody struggling and feeling like the underdog, I always make sure that they feel heard and loved and that I see them. I think that’s one thing that I like to do. I just love people, and I have a big heart, and that’s really what I want people to know.

I know my Black guy friends are watching because they love you — that pool scene! They were all texting me like, “I know you watch. Who is this? What is going on?!”

I love it!

And I feel like the guys on your show — Eazy saying things like, “Oh, that was a cute-ass date” — sound like my friends. What was it like having that energy around you, especially with this year of racial reckoning in 2020?

You never know what you’re going to get when you’re dating anybody. So dating a lot of people from diverse backgrounds in that situation was nice because sometimes you just feel more comfortable with some people. And with Eazy in particular, I feel like he just got me in a different way. Him being able to talk to me in a sense of how my family would talk to me, it was nice having that. It maybe did break down some of the walls that I had. Whenever he and I got together, we would start laughing, and I felt good, and I was like, I just want to be around him. So maybe it was really helpful, and I didn’t even realize it at the time, but he really did put me at ease just being himself.

“I knew it hit me to some capacity. I just didn’t know how to even verbalize that. And so what else I could have said at that time is that I didn’t know that just being me was enough.”

Your episode with Ivan was therapy for me. And I noticed that you broke down, which is what I probably would’ve done, too. Is there anything in that moment that you wish you would have said?

Yes, there’s a lot I wish I had said. But it’s hard to get those feelings across in three concise sentences. I guess what I had felt during just the last six months was that I never really realized how much I felt like I couldn’t be myself, or I didn’t know who I truly was because of what was around me. And I never really had those hard-hitting questions of how my grandparents were raised because they were raised somewhere very different than here and same with my mom and dad. Those were real questions that, unfortunately, I didn’t have growing up, and I think so many other people didn’t have as a biracial child. And I feel the reason I had so many emotions is because, again, those were never questions I really worked through. I knew it hit me to some capacity. I just didn’t know how to even verbalize that. And so what else I could have said at that time is that I didn’t know that just being me was enough.

It’s so enough. It’s so enough.

I hope that the entire 2020 [makes] people ask those questions even though they do hurt and they are awkward at times, even to their parents, myself included. I think that’s what I started doing, so that felt really good, but there’s just so much.

When you’re filming, the whole world around you is quarantining, and you’re just in this isolated bubble, and you’ve got this bomb room and pool — what would you do to unplug?

I will say, I wish I had a lot of spa nights and was able to pamper myself a little bit more, but I’m telling you the second I had a minute to wind down, I was either sleeping or I was just out in the sun for a hot minute. But the things that I do when I do have the opportunity is go on a run and work out because I feel I hold a lot of anxiety in my body. If I do get anxious, I can’t really be my best self. So going on the treadmill and running for a hot minute. And then every night before I go to bed, I just pray, and I have a solid 10 minutes of me just sitting there, and that’s really all I do. And I like to listen to music. I think that also brings me back to some sense of normalcy.

What have you been listening to?

Oh my gosh, girl, I’m telling you, when we were filming, that song “Greece” came out from Drake and Pop Smoke’s “Dior.” Those two songs were huge in my little Bachelorette world. If I was able to listen to one song, I was like, play “Dior.”