'Bachelor in Paradise' castmate believes race worked against him, invokes Charlottesville, Trump

Before the 2017 season had even finished filming, Bachelor in Paradise was making headlines. After an alleged sexual encounter between castmates DeMario Jackson and Corinne Olympios halted filming in Mexico, an investigation determined that there was no wrongdoing on set -- but Olympios and Jackson were already front and center of an (almost) national scandal.

"I think people wanted it to be something different," Jackson said, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday. "They wanted the angry black guy and this little, innocent white girl. But it wasn't that."

"We wouldn’t even be having this discussion at all," Jackson said, if he weren't a black man doubted for an encounter with a white woman.

"If I would have been Alex or Derek, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation," Jackson said, naming two of his white male costars. "If anyone argues, tell them to Google 'Charlottesville.' That’s the world we live in. Look who our president is. Just tell them to look up what Trump said. It’s always the white guy who says race didn’t play a factor. Trust me, there were four black people on that entire island, three castmates and one producer. Luckily that producer followed me over [to the pool with Corinne] because I gave him the look. He followed me over with cameras."

After filming stopped because a producer filed a complain, Olympios described herself as a victim and said she had "little memory of that night" but "something bad obviously took place." Jackson, for his part, said he was on the receiving end of "false claims and malicious allegations," and leaked text messages he sent to friends suggest that he's eager to see video footage.

"I recall everything," Jackson told THR. "I remember what I wore to school the first day of third grade. It was 100 percent consensual."

"Even today, after all of this, I’m still sitting here confused," he said after the episode premiered, showing footage of that night. "I still feel like I’m missing 25 percent of the story, even though I’m in the story. I’m still sitting here saying, 'Wait a minute, what happened?'"

You can read Jackson's full interview here. Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays on ABC.