Bachelorette Fans Chose A Side In Sam & Devin’s Drama

Just a few weeks into Jenn Tran’s Bachelorette season, there are already several front-runners for her heart, and unsurprisingly, they aren’t all big fans of each other.

Despite winning Jenn’s first-impression rose (and sharing plenty of physical chemistry with the Season 21 lead), Sam McKinney has bristled at Devin Strader’s presence on the show.

“I’m always going to keep the main thing the main thing. My main thing is Jenn,” Sam said in Week 3, declaring his plans to keep the focus on her and not Devin — or, as he put it, the “ankle-biting dog” at his heels.

“Devin isn’t worth a second of my breath or my energy,” he continued in a confessional. But he gave Devin a lot of breath and energy over the course of the July 22 episode, and fans grew tired of the drama.

(Please Don’t) Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing

From talking about Devin at the beginning, to confronting him after the strip-tease date, to voicing his disappointment that his Bachelorette foe would be sticking around for another week, Sam used his mantra of “Keep the main thing the main thing” quite a lot throughout the episode.

He seemed to be quoting Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s no wonder he was good friends with Aaron Erb, who gave Devin a different (and seemingly fake) self-help book last week.

No matter where it came from, the line wore out its welcome among Bachelorette viewers on X (formerly Twitter). “The main thing should be you in a car driving home Sam M,” one fan wrote.

Another pointed out the irony of how Sam “does not keep the main thing the main thing and talks about all the guys.”

Bully Who?

Fans also took issue with Sam calling Devin a “bully,” when in reality, Devin spent much of the after-party defending Sam Nejad from criticism over his early love declaration for Jenn.

Several viewers likened Devin and Sam M.’s dynamic to Maria Georgas and Sydney Gordon’s on The Bachelor. “I think I’ve seen this film before,” one user wrote.

Even the show seemed to take Devin’s side, with the chyron under Sam’s confessional reading: “Needs to look up the definition of bully in the dictionary.”

Viewers who previously weren’t big fans of Devin had a change of heart. “Can’t believe I went from hating Devin and loving Sam M. one week to this week being the opposite,” as one fan put it.

Naturally, there’s only one way to resolve this conflict. As one fan wrote, it’s time for a two-on-one date between Devin and Sam.