Nick Viall is a white man who lives a life of privilege.
And the former Bachelor lead can tell you a very specific tale that helps illustrate why this is the case.
“I did want to tell you guys a story, a story about the first time I was arrested. By first, I mean only time. I was detained. It was about 10 years ago. I was still living in Milwaukee,” Viall said on his podcast on Wednesday.
“I went out to the bars with my best friend and my girlfriend at the time and his girlfriend at the time, now wife.”
The reality star felt a need to share this with listeners in light of George Floyd being killed by a Minnesota police officer and protests subsequently breaking out around the nation.
With millions of people fighting, yelling and screaming about police brutality, Viall thought this would be an appropriate way to support the cause.
Viall explained to podcast subscriibers that Milwaukee is “a pretty segregated city,” specifically the strip of bars and restaurants downtown on the famed Water Street.
He theorized that 80 to 90 percent of patrons are white.
Again, this may seem random.
But it’s not. It’s meant to help folks understand how differently cops often treat white person and African-American people.
“So at the end of the night, we’re leaving the bars, and my best friend is the type of lovable guy who sometimes when he drinks, you’ve got to make sure you know where he is," Viall detailed.
"He’s very social. You can lose him quickly. He will talk to anyone. A guy you gotta keep an eye on. We all have that friend.
"We’re leaving the bar, and I’m with my girlfriend and his girlfriend, and all of a sudden we lose him. We’re outside and it’s, like, chaotic. There’s cops on horses, and the first thing you do when you walk outside of the bar is you see this giant horse.
"You’ve had a few drinks, you want to, like, look at the horse and touch the horse, and the cops are like, ‘Don’t touch the horse!’ I’m like, ‘Well, why are you right in our face?’
"So there’s a lot of confusion, and people are drinking and drunk.”
Amid this chaos, Viall said he was simply trying to grab his pal and peace out… when he got arrested.
Viall recalled being “thrown” into a police van and feeling “kind of panicked” because he wasn’t certain what he had done wrong.
He looked around the vehicle and saw “one other white kid and a bunch of black young men,” approximately 15 people in total.
The former Bachelor said his then-girlfriend and one of her friends then spoke to the cops ("Here you have two little, cute girls going up to a cop and pleading for their friend…") and simply convinced them to let Viall go.
And that was that.
“We shouldn’t be arresting people like you," Viall says the police officer actually told him at the time.
Concluded Viall, who was very critical last month of Hannah Brown using the N-word:
It was so clear to me at the time that what he meant was because I’m white, and it was so obvious.
And he said it to me in a way, and I remember being, like, so offended by him saying that, because he said it to me as if I would acknowledge what he said, being like, ‘Yeah, why are you arresting me?’ Like I would agree with him.
It was just such an eye-opening moment. Like, holy s–t, this stuff still goes on.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the only reason I was let off that night was because I was white.
And that, everyone, goes a long way toward explaining what’s been happening in America for decades.
And what will hopefully start to change in the near future.
Nick Viall: I Was Arrested… and Let Go “Because I Was White” was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip .