Chris Harrison is ready to talk.
“For my part in this, I was sick to my stomach. I lost 20 pounds. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I was scared to death not of my job but of my family – my fiancé, my kids. I’m a bit of an empath and I am very loyal to a fault and I am a team player,” Harrison said on his new podcast “The Most Dramatic Podcast … Ever.” “When this happened, while I was sick to my stomach and so disappointed that the interview went that way and it was on me because I controlled what I had to say. And while the point I was trying to get across I stand by, the way I did it was messy and disappointing and it’s just not me.”
The former host of ABC’s lucrative “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” reality shows (and several of its related spin-offs) stepped away from the franchise in early 2021 after defending contestant Rachael Kirkconnell, who faced criticism after attending an “Old South” ball in 2018. Harrison was speaking to Rachel Lindsay, who was the “Bachelorette” in the show’s 13th season, on the entertainment show “Extra.” After the ensuing media backlash (including comments from Lindsay about how the interaction made her feel), Harrison announced that he was stepping back from the show. And then in June, it was announced that he had left the franchise completely.
And that was it. Until now. Harrison has a new podcast on the iHeartRadio network called “The Most Dramatic Podcast … Ever.” Apparently, it will be about romantic relationships and not, specifically, his former reality show (although the title of the podcast is a play on the frequently hyperbolic marketing for the series).
“If this is going to be about relationships, the most important part of that is communication,” Harrison began. “We have not talked in a long time, and I think it’s time we finally have that chat. And I’m sorry it’s taken so long.”
Harrison noted that this was the first time he was talking since leaving the show (he gave one interview to Michael Strahan at “Bachelor” network ABC after the “Extra” interview), but says that it would have just added to the cacophony of discussion around his misstep and exit. “When there was so much noise, me talking would have just been more noise,” Harrison said. “One point that I was trying to make and did not make eloquently was that people need time to think and need time to process. We must have grace and patience for people or else you’re just getting nonsensical, reactive emotion. I wanted to step away and learn and change and go through everything I went through before I had this talk.”
He said that the producers of the show and the larger “Bachelor” community thought that after he apologized publicly, the controversy would subside. “People didn’t think it would amount to much. If I apologized we would be able to move forward,” Harrison said. But his very public bungle happened at a galvanizing point in the culture. “There was a lot of confusion, anger, resentment. It was a very combustible moment in time. My timing in being sloppy, wrong, inappropriate in that moment. I was just as frustrated and blind and pissed off as the rest of the world. But that’s not to say that was OK. The timing of this was very relevant. When I apologized I felt like I needed that and it was owed. And I was fine with it. But there was so much noise at the time, it just didn’t matter,” Harrison said. (For her part, Lindsay has said that she never got an apology from Harrison.)
Harrison wasn’t entirely self-reflective and Zen. At one point he referred to “people in Hollywood” who might be nervous about his return. “If you’re nervous, maybe you should be. Because you probably know that I know,” Harrison growled. Um OK? He also insinuated that there were “certain cast members” who were jockeying for his job as host of the legacy franchise but that others (including Ben Higgins and Catherine and Sean Lowe) stood by him and offered their support. Harrison also said that he hasn’t watched the show since he left.
Both the right and left claimed Harrison as one of their own in the moments following the uproar, according to Harrison. “My name became synonymous with this political, lightning-in-a-bottle moment, and all of a sudden someone on CNN is talking about me for purposes of the left,” Harrison said. “And then Ben Shapiro and whoever else is talking about me… so I was being used by the right.” (If you follow Harrison on social media you would probably assume his politics were, um, right of center.)
We’ll see how his podcast is received and if Harrison continues to discuss what he describes as an “ordeal.”
