Bachelor’s Joey sticks up for Sydney after she receives intense backlash

The Bachelor Season 28 lead Joey Graziadei defended contestant Sydney Gordon when she received backlash after the show.

Sydney Gordon became a villain on The Bachelor Season 28 when she inserted herself into a feud between Maria Georgas and Madina Alam.

Madina had concerns about being older than lead Joey Graziadei and Maria repeated what she said, causing Sydney to overhear it and tell Madina.

Sydney and Maria were at odds because of this incident, and were sent on a two-on-one date together to work out their issues, but Sydney was eliminated.

Since her time on The Bachelor, Sydney has gotten backlash for the way she treated Maria on the show, with fans DMing her calling her names like “f*cking bitch” and “skank.”

Joey believes Sydney didn’t deserve backlash

In an interview with E! News, Joey expressed sympathy for the backlash Sydney has received since the show aired.

“Anyone that’s been on the show can understand how difficult it is sometimes to go through this and how much you do things that you wish you could take back or you see yourself in a light that you didn’t expect,” he said.

 “No one should be treated with any type of that cruelness that Sydney has been getting.”

Joey added, “I did get to know her in other ways that you obviously didn’t see on the show. I think she’s a very sweet person. I obviously know that she’s shared that she got lost in the drama that was going on. But no one deserves to be treated that way regardless of what people’s opinions are.”

Joey also explained that if the Bachelor contestants were having drama with one another, he was always open to hearing all sides of the story.

“My way of handling the drama was if someone wanted to bring something to me, I would always be willing to talk about it and talk through it. But I never wanted to go chasing and trying to find answers. Because it’s so hard to do in my position.”

The Bachelor lead was focused on forming connections rather than discussing what was going between the women, but also gave them a chance to vent to him.

In the Bachelor franchise, drama can often get in the way of building a relationship with the lead, and viewers may have taken things too far by sending Sydney negative messages.

The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.