We have another Bachelorette-related scandal to report.
And unlike most of the recent controversies, this one has nothing to do with Taylor Frankie Paul’s assault video.
But it’s still bizarre and troubling, and Paul is still indirectly involved (it was still her season, after all).
We now know that one of the men who courted Taylor during her canceled season of The Bachelorette was involved in the car crash that left former congressman Madison Cawthorn paralyzed from the waist down.
Brad Ledford, now 29, was just 17 when he and Cawthorn headed to Florida for spring break in 2014.
Ledford fell asleep behind the wheel on the ride home, leading to a crash that left Cawthorn confined to a wheelchair.
Shortly after Cawthorn became the youngest person ever elected to Congress, Ledford shared his version of events with People.
“The situation was getting worse and worse,” he recalled, adding:
“I remember his leg was pretty badly cut from the accident, and we were sitting on the side of the interstate.
“So, I took my shirt off and wrapped it around his leg and then just kind of stayed with him until the paramedics got there.”
“If it wasn’t for him, Madison would’ve died,” Cawthorn’s father later told a North Carolina media outlet.
But in a 2017 chapel speech, Cawthorn alleged that Ledford had left him “to die in a fiery tomb.”
“He was my brother, my best friend,” Cawthorn said in the speech, adding:
“He runs to safety deep in the woods and just leaves me in a burning car as the flames start to lick my legs and curl up and burn my left side.”
“That statement he made was false,” Ledford later alleged. “It hurt very badly that he would say something as false as that. That is not at all what happened. I pulled him out of the car the second that I was able to get out of the car.”
Ledford was vindicated by a 2017 sworn deposition, in which Cawthorn admitted he had “no memory from the accident.”
Shortly after Cawthorn was sworn into Congress in 2021, Ledford told People that he did not know why his former friend still hadn’t walked back the version of events that he had shared publicly.
“I’m still thinking about it, and trying to figure out how I feel about that, or the best way that I think that should be handled,” Ledford said.
“Obviously, I know what he said to me, and that’s what really matters, right? He’s apologized for that a number of times, and it seems very genuine.”
In a TikTok recorded last month, Ledford added that he harbors no ill will toward Taylor following her string of scandals.
“I will say that I could care less about a TV show not airing right now. There’s real kids involved, real family involved, and I want the best for them. I want the best for Taylor’s kids. I want the best for Taylor,” Ledford said, adding:
“God’s love has no bounds; it knows no boundaries. He’s forgiven me for many things, and he’s already forgiven Taylor.
“I want Taylor to find that peace, and I want her kids to have that peace in the future more than anything, and I think they can, you know, it’s there for them if they want it.”
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.