Twitter Reacts To Lee's Behavior On 'The Bachelorette'

By now, most of Bachelor Nation is very aware of Lee's obnoxious and highly controversial personality on The Bachelorette. He's started conflicts with multiple suitors on the show this season for almost no reason at all. Given that Season 13 features the first black Bachelorette and is ushering in the most diverse cast of suitors yet, fans are definitely picking up on Lee's problematic behavior, and they are not standing for it. And these Twitter reactions to Lee on The Bachelorette prove as much.

Episode 4 opened with the fallout from Lee's squabble with Eric. His pot-stirring tactic of choice seems to be baiting guys into fights with him and then sitting back and quietly chuckling at them as they get more and more frustrated over trying to engage him in a conversation about the conflict. He did it again moments after the Eric fight blew over, this time with Kenny. Rachel and Kenny were talking alone (again, at the same cocktail party), and Lee came over to interrupt. OK, fair enough, that happens. But Kenny asked for a little more time, jokingly telling Lee to come back in "like, 16 seconds."

Lee stepped back a few paces and literally counted out 16 seconds on his fingers before interrupting them again. Kenny was angry, but relented. Later, though, he confronted Lee in what turned out to be another one-sided screaming match while Lee grinned smugly. Everyone in the house seemed to be able to see what he was doing, and although no one has explicitly called him out on staging "angry black man" scenes, we know from previews that this moment is coming.

Ironically, it was Dean "I'm ready to go black and never go back" Unglert who was the first person to call Lee out on the manipulative game he seems to be playing. Twitter noticed that, too.

With his extremely vulnerable one-on-one date, Dean inadvertently became the star of this week's episode. But Lee was only digging himself into a deeper hole with unsubtle comments like, "I'm going to have problems with some of these guys in here," and, "You're damn right I enjoy pissing them off." Oh, and the reason he needed to interrupt Kenny so desperately? To give Rachel a piece of two-by-four with the word "enchanting" etched into it.

Lee openly admitted that he enjoys gaslighting people, saying in a cutaway interview, "I get tickled when I smile and an angry man gets angrier." It's why Twitter felt collective heartbreak when he slid through the rose ceremony by the skin of his teeth. (Don't worry, so did Kenny and Eric. But Diggy was a sad casualty.) Needless to say, the likelihood that this conflict will evolve into some sort of feel-good teaching moment seems low. But it's encouraging to see that at least some of the guys in the house are picking up on Lee's manipulative behavior.