Phillips. Photo: Bob D’Amico/ABC via Getty Images

The Bachelorette season two’s Meredith Phillips has accused the show of hiring a masseuse who drugged and sexually assaulted her while the show was in production in 2003. Phillips revealed the allegations during an appearance on the Reality Steve podcast, saying that she had expressed being fatigued while filming to the producers, who then brought in a massage therapist to relax her. The masseuse, a woman, allegedly then gave Phillips an unidentified pill. “I just assumed it was an aspirin or something to loosen up my back, or Tylenol, or something. And it definitely wasn’t that, that’s for sure,” Phillips says. “The last thing I remember was she got naked and she was in the tub with me, and rubbing my back and rubbing areas probably she shouldn’t have. And then I was put in bed. I woke up naked. Don’t remember much.”

She claims the incident happened on location in Los Angeles, in the bedroom of the mansion where she was staying. She continues, “I remember everything until a certain point, and when the pill kicked in, I literally couldn’t even move my body, so I have no idea what the pill was, at all. All I know is that I was told that, ‘This will make you feel better.’” Phillips alleges that another person working on the show at the time had confided in her that she was also allegedly “roofied and in a hot tub and kind of accosted” during production. Phillips says she didn’t report it at the time because she “wanted to protect the franchise, which is fucked-up.” She considered exiting the show after it happened, but wanted to see her season through and has since tried to move past the incident: “It is a huge deal. I have worked through it and thrown it in the back of my mind. I had no control. Zero. I think that was the hardest part for me, that I couldn’t even lift my arms to say no.” Last year, Bachelor in Paradise investigated a contestant for sexual assault, but found no evidence of misconduct.