If you are like me and part of Bachelor Nation, then you were watching Chris Harrison host as Ben Higgins took the hot seat on the Women Tell All show, and also asked some tough questions as he put JoJo and Ben face to face for the first time since he broke her heart and chose Lauren B on last night’s season finale. But what happens when 25 bloggers put Chris Harrison in the hot seat? Well here you go, Chris Harrison Tells All, happening right here.
This is post is a continuation of a post I did at the start of season 20 of The Bachelor where Chris shared all about what to expect this season. Now that this season has almost come to an end, I am finally sharing the rest of that interview.
Chris Harrison Tells All
I don’t care what you ask. I’ve been here 15 years. I promise there’s nothing out there. Yeah, nothing I haven’t been asked. At this point, I feel secure in my job, I’ll pretty much tell you anything.
Do you have any stories that you want to share?
My own tragic experiences? No, I mean honestly, personal? It’s funny, I was married for 19 years, and I love the show and I love doing it. I think it’s being happily married, having 2 kids, and being a family man, and that being so important to me, hoping to be a really good host and being a rock for these people. But I think oddly enough, the last 4 years, since my divorce, has made me empathize with them a lot more and realize why they’re all here, and what they’re going through, and so it’s really interesting how my opinions have changed a little bit. I think I’ve become probably a better host and listener and therapist and friend over the years with these people, since then. And then for stories, my God, there will be a Mother of all Tells some day. “What happened to that guy?” I’ll be on some island away from drone attacks in space, where you can see some of the drone industry down. I will write this incredible, bizarre tell all of this franchise that has changed my life dramatically. If you watch the evolution of this show. We started 15 years ago. The reason I know this so well is my son was born. He was 6 weeks old when I got the job and I met Mike Fleiss, the creator of the show. And it was this crazy concept and reality was very new, very edgy.
Survivor had just come on the air, and then we were next. And I remember running into Jeff Probst of Survivor at an event and I said, ‘what is it?’ I was a sportscaster and I knew how to host but this was very different. There was no template, there was no playbook for this is how you host a reality show.
Jeff actually just said, you’re gonna have to figure it out. I had to figure it out on “Survivor.” Your thing is gonna be so different. You’re just gonna have to find your space. Early on, I was a bit of just a talking head and I almost did have a script per se. I didn’t really think too much out of the box. I was just trying to keep my job honestly at the time. I was scared to death, my first network show, and we picked up with 6 one hour episodes. That was it. That was the original concept. No Bachelorette. That was never intended to happen. This is just kind of a one time deal that we thought we would do. And you know, now we do for Fan Season, there will be at least ten 2 hour episodes. Maybe a 3 hour episodes somewhere, and 2 specials. So at least 23, 24 hours of television will be produced. We used to do 6. So it’s stunning when you think of how much we produce. And now I can’t even fathom doing a one hour episode. I don’t know how we would do it. We can’t, and think about your favorite shows, whether it’s Revenge or Scandal, or whatever it is, they get an hour. If you went to them and said guys, you’re doing a 2 hour show, they’d be like, “it can’t be done. You could never produce that much”. And they couldn’t afford it but it’s amazing that we do 2 and 3 hour shows. Yet we remain, I think, compelling and interesting.
This summer, I know we beat everyone to death because we had 4 or 5 hours a night we did on Sunday and Monday nights. We did 24 hours of “Bachelor In Paradise” and it was that insane. In this day and age of television, you know, that people don’t even watch television anymore. That’s astounding to me. That just shows again and again the relevance of the show which is incredible to me. But there were no blogs. (we almost gasp as a joke) I know, there was a world before you guys. MySpace hadn’t been created, there was nothing. We controlled the message. You know, Mitch would call and say, Hey you’re doing an interview with People Magazine and ET, you know.
And they would sit in a room and they would control everything that we said, did, and what got out. And you know, there was no such thing as spoilers and our show was very private. We had very private dates. We never did public dates back then because we kept everything so secret and maybe something possibly might leak out but it was so hard for information to really get out like it does today. And then the social media starts growing, then came Facebook and then, you go onto Twitter and Instagram and Blogs and all that. It’s amazing how our show has had to embrace that. I think one of the reasons our show remains relevant is we have to stay with the generation that’s at hand.
CHRIS HARRISON, BEN HIGGINS
Ben’s 26 years old. When I started this show, I was 30. And now, I’m older than that. But it’s a “dazed and confused” thing. I keep getting older, they stay the same age. But Ben’s 26. He’s of that generation now and so it’s interesting that the college age kids love our show because again, it’s relevant to their generation. But there’s a remained interested in the show, and so we have had to grow with you guys. You guys demand more and you have expected more out of television especially movies, television, whatever. You know, you have been. I think, it’s good and bad. But you push the envelope.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed on the last 3 years, our show has become a lot more organic. There was Juan Pablo where we become exposed. Oh, we have to show who he was. You know, maybe back in the day, we have faked it a little bit, glossed it over and still made him the pseudo hero and done the best we could. I’m trying to think of other examples of where maybe someone’s leaving or something happens and great, one of my favorite examples ever was, Ryan Putz, down in Guadalupe, Mexico, that slept with our girl, and then jumped out the Balcony and broke his leg.
You know, who knows what we would have done with that. I mean it was just too good of a story to not to tell because it’s the greatest story ever but um, again now we just, we just show you guys because it’s going to get out. You know, our National Security secrets get out. You don’t think, 28 Twitter crazed kids on the Bachelor are gonna talk? Of course, they’re gonna talk. They can’t eat breakfast without talking. I mean, they get up, go to the bathroom and have to show people. So The Bachelor, when they recorded The Bachelor, of course we’re going to talk. These people do exist to talk. They take pictures of everything they do. So you know, you have to embrace that. That is our show and that’s the generation that we live with. So to fight that would be insane.
And so we do. We have Ben from Warsaw, Indiana. We had a date in Warsaw, Indiana where we opened up the entire town and did a Carnival. There were 2000 people there, all of them of course with pictures and cameras and this. So I’m sure I haven’t been out on because I don’t really care. But I’m sure there’s pictures all over the place of dates we had all season. So again, that’s just how you have to embrace it and go with it and realize it’s out there so use it to our advantage. There are Spoilers sometimes that get out and I wish that wouldn’t happen but again, that’s, you know.
Reality TV.
Yeah, you’re gonna find out what happened at the end of “Star Wars” or whatever, what’s going on with Luke. I promise you you’re not gonna get to the Premiere of “Star Wars” and not know about Luke. That’s just the way this world is.
Do you have a favorite season and do you prefer The Bachelor or Bachelorette?
Who’s your favorite Child? Ha! Now it’s my boy because I have a girl that’s about to become a teenager and God knows what’s going on in her life. So now, my boy’s easier but it’ll change. That’s probably the way it is for me is, you know, it changes. But for me, it’s more personal, it goes with my life and when I notice like my life changing. Season 2 was Aaron Burton. We started in the Fall of 2002, with this guy Alex Michelle and while that was kind of big, it wasn’t huge. ABC was a bit of a house on fire. Their ratings were terrible. The Network was coming to the end of era for a lot of shows. “NYPD Blue” was ending, “8 Simple Rules” with John Ritter. There was the Belushi Show. George Lopez had a show, and “Alias” was on. There was a lot of shows but nothing was doing great. And then “The Bachelor” came on and we did good, not great but we did good. And then something happened over the summer of 2002, and when we headed to the Fall Season with Aaron Burdy, it was just, the world just exploded. You could not turn on the television, pick up the New York Times, Time Magazine, not tabloids like Time Magazine, the New York Times, Sports Illustrated. No matter what you picked up, they were talking about “The Bachelor.”
JUSTIN KAHN/WIREIMAGE
And by the time we came back to Aaron Buerge, I think we had some 33 million viewers watching “The Bachelor.” And you just thought this is different. My life has just changed. I’m a part of something that’s much bigger than I’ve ever been a part of, and we were all just kind of holding on for the ride. And back then, you know, what you see now which is so uniform that my daughter could produce the show. She knows what it looks like. You all have seen the show so many times but back then, we didn’t know what a Rose Ceremony. This is a Rose Ceremony. No, everyone move over here, sit on a couch. No, everyone stand over– There was no… Figuring this out as we went. Literally figuring it out. We have this thing called Date Boxes. The first time we shot the Show, I went on the Beach in Santa Monica and I met them.
They would come and there was like this weird bench in the middle of the beach and they opened up a Date Box and it was this big reveal. None of that ever aired. You never saw that because it was such a waste of time. We shot so much stuff because we didn’t know what we would use and so we just shot for days and then now, we’ve honed it into we know exactly what we’re going to use and what we won’t use and so people think “Oh, you have cameras going 24/7 at the house. How did you not catch this?” Well we don’t because we know we’re not going to use that and so sometimes we’ll miss things because something crazy will happen.
But for the most part we know, so it’s just interesting. So I would go back to like Aaron Buerge, Trista, which is our highest rated season from start to finish. Aaron Burdy I think, is our highest rated show ever, with like 33 million. I think we got to, don’t quote me, I know you will but I’d go back and look. There’s something, it was 15 years ago, I think we had outdrew the Oscars that year. And I remember Sports Illustrated, they said a sign of the Apocalypse, and it was like this, “Reality Show Bachelor out rates World Series games like 4, 5, and 6”. Whatever it was, it was like ridiculous. And you know, the #1 show on TV. And then Trista came along and that was a huge controversial idea. How dare we put a woman in charge and have The Bachelorette? It was really crazy back then.
PAUL MORIGI/GETTY
And then again now, it seems so benign and commonplace but back then, it was a wild idea. And Trista is just a perfect storm, great guys, wonderful woman, and I think that legitimized our franchise. That was our kind of tipping point of ‘Oh My Gosh, this is for real’. Ryan and Trista are so incredible. That was the Fairy Tale, and that kind of set the stage for everything that happened after. It really did. I think if we hadn’t had that success early on because you know, Aaron and Pauline, I can’t believe I remember their names. They did get engaged but they broke up not too long after. And obviously Alex, Michele, and Amanda broke up and so you know, when you have Ryan and Trista, and they were just so real and they stood the test of time still, that just kind of set the stage like OK, this can happen.
Do you think that was because she did choose Ryan?
Right, it was Charlie vs. Ryan. And it is a theme like not to, promote my book “The Perfect Letter” but that’s what I did end up basing my novel, is the capacity to love more than one person. That is really what I think the show exposes. We all have the capacity to love more than one person at a time and it sounds crazy. And obviously, The Bachelor is dating on steroids. But we all have that capacity and you know, Trista was a good example of that first lesson of that. You have Charlie who everybody says on paper, is the guy, right? I mean he has the looks the money, just that ‘it’ factor. You’re crazy to not end up with a guy like Charlie. But then there’s Ryan and he’s the right guy because he’s the guy inside your heart, inside your head. He’s the guy you can’t stop thinking about at night and when you wake up in the morning. And so that was the first time when you saw this real dilemma of what do I do and I think a lot of times, it’s interesting. The women will make that right choice. Guys often don’t. They’re not smart animals. You can quote that, that’s true, if you haven’t already figured that out. We’re not animals. When she chose Ryan, I think everyone in America was like uh, thank God.
She was very real too.
In fact, we didn’t even know. You know, we got to the final episode, like OK great but wait. How do we do this? Like did she propose? Does he propose? And so we actually sat down with Trista and because we knew she was choosing Ryan that final day. And we did it actually at the house. Trista, Ryan and I, we’re great friends. I love that they’re like family to me. So she still gives me crap every time she sees me, like so, “Let’s go through my date destinations, Seattle. Sedona. We did my proposal over a pool in Encino.” And I was like yes, sorry about that. But it was funny. Those were exotic nights. You know, they were one nights. We always came back for Rose Ceremonies. We never went anywhere where we didn’t fly back the next day. It wasn’t a big travel show. Trista got the butt end of that stick for sure. But she ended up with a guy. It’s funny, even then, we didn’t even know how to do the proposal and she’s the one that said at the end of the day, I’m a lady. I still want to be treated like a lady and you know, as long as I have the power, I want him to take over at some point. And so we kind of had to figure this out with Charlie and Ryan without giving away who it was and it was like who do we give the ring to cause now, if it’s the Bachelor, he has a ring in his pocket and he’ll surprise her but with how do you do that when they don’t know about the guy. So they both walk up with rings basically. (OUCH!) Yeah, I know.
Especially Charlie.
I ran into Charlie in Las Vegas like a few months ago. It was bizarre. This guy came up to me like — like do you remember me? I was like yeah I remember you. But it was funny because back then, I spent a lot, not that I’m not friends with these people now but obviously, we were closer in age back then. And so, I spent a lot more time with him and back then, I hung out at the house because we had no rules. We just, you know, I would go play poker with the guys and stop by and have a beer. And when Trista was out with one of the guys, we’d shoot some pool and play poker and hang out. Now that doesn’t happen. It’s very professional and we’re older but back then, we were just kind of, you know, throwing it against the wall and seeing if it stuck.
So from all of the seasons, has there ever been a time when you were just screaming inside and say, No, don’t pick this person?
Yes and No. It’s interesting, I think one obviously with age comes wisdom and obviously, this job, is giving me an amazing amount of experience. I don’t have a doctorate in love that I should be at this point. Life is not so black and white, you know? I think we’ve all lived a life we enjoy. When you’re young, their age that’s honestly what makes the hsow so good and why these people at this age, makes it such good television because life isn’t black and white. There’s right, there’s wrong. There’s good, there’s bad, and then you get older and you’re like nah, there’s a bit of gray area there.
Ben Flajnik and Courtney Robertson attend the 2nd annual “Night of a Billion Reality Stars” bash in 2012. Jason LaVeris/FilmMagizine via usmagazine.com
Ben and Courtney is a good example because I think a lot of people were screaming Courtney’s terrible, she’s evil, she’s bad for you, whatever. Like you know, I have kids, I have 2 kids. And what’s the first thing, you’re like, this stove’s hot, don’t touch it. And so, that’s the way it is for humans and relationships. And if I’m like, that guy you’re dating is a complete jackass. Immediately – Cause hat’s judgment on you so you’re gonna get defensive. You’re gonna start defending him. You’re gonna run into him even mtore and now I’ve kind of ruined any chance I had of getting him between you guys. And so now it’s like how do I approach this situation? And by the way, I’m not all knowing, and that’s very important to understand. Tell me like what is it about this guy that you love so much. What do you see in this, and I’ll be honest, I’m not seeing it. I see certain things so tell me what I’m missing. Um, how does he make you feel? What does he do to you? What does he say? How does he love you that I don’t get? And that is an interesting way to approach it. Helps me be a better parent. Honestly, I talk to my daughter and my son so vastly different than I used to. Because again, you don’t, believe it or not, parents, we don’t know what level and you don’t see their, you know, everything. And so when I talk to these Bachelors and Bachelorettes, you know, I try to empathize with them a little more. And I can usually get my point across a lot better and impose my will so to speak.
So looking back at Season 20, what do you feel was the center of the drama?
I mean this Season was interesting because the drama was more Ben induced and caused because of who he is and how he kind of holds himself, carries himself throughout the show, which is extraordinarily well, and he’s very open. The best way to go through with this is to really just wear your heart on your sleeve and give yourself up to the process. And that is so much easier said than done because you walk into– it would be like me walking into all of you guys and go OK, here’s my life. Take me at my most vulnerable moments and that’s scary as hell to do. But it works best in the show, only really works if it you do it that way.
And Sean Lowe is a good example. Sean sees, and I’ll bring him up a lot because they remind me a lot of each other is that we got a glimpse of Sean on mid-season. Everyone kind of really liked this guy. But then when you saw him on The Bachelor, you really fell in love with him. He got a sense of humor and how self deprecating he was and what just a good guy Sean was.
And I think Ben’s the same type of guy, how sincere and humble and faith based, and he really just gave himself up to us, and said ‘go’, like I trust you guys. You’re good at what you do. Take care of it. And it’s scary when you have someone’s life in your hands. But we kind of took it and ran. And so because of that and because he really just gave himself and threw himself into the fire, the drama will follow like that happens. We don’t have to produce that. And I know people think oh, you cast it crazy and you kept this girl like you don’t have to. If I lock these doors right now, I promise you, half this room are crazy.
And so here’s the thing. We take away your phones, we take away your blogs, we take away your Mom and Dad. All the things that you rely on every day, and it’s something that I really believe in, in my life, is that, if you concentrate on one thing, no matter what that one thing is in your life, when you wake up and you say I’m gonna do this one thing, and concentrate on that. And until that is accomplished today, I’m not doing anything else, you will become great at whatever you’re trying to do, whether it’s religion, working out, business, relationships, whatever it is.
So if all you do is wake up and think about Ben, and think about dating Ben, and think about your own life and where you are in your own life, it doesn’t mean it’s going to work. I don’t guarantee that it’s going to work but I guarantee at the end of this process, you’ll know if it does or it doesn’t and you’ll also learn if you’re ready to actually commit to something. And that is an interesting thing. You end up with like Jesse Palmer, Bob Getty, some of these others that they get into it for very sincere reasons and they feel that they’re ready but once they go through it and you get stripped down, often times like, “Oh Crap like maybe I’m not ready for this in my life”. Ben did a good job of really giving up and the women kind of had to follow. The women had to really give it up too and that was a very vulnerable space. So it’s a dramatic season but I think in a very different way than what we’re gonna be used to.
You said that in the beginning that you know, the producers really had to produce some stuff but now, it’s not as necessarily to produce but are there still things that are put in the place to cause the drama?
Well only is it not necessary but also you have to careful. We can’t because you guys will find out. As you all know, there are reality shows that are completely scripted and contrived and they’re entertaining to me, but like look at Duck Dynasty. That’s a fun Show. But those people aren’t that funny. They’re not interesting left to their own devices so they put them in situations. They tell them what to say, tell them what to do, and it’s funny. That’s great. But left to their devices, I think we’ve seen what they, you know. So we’ll leave them to their own devices. So “The Bachelor” if we are ever too heavy handed, you’re gonna find out and we’ll be exposed and the show will come to a quick end. So we really can’t do that. And our main goal is to end up with a couple, a happy couple and so if you mess with Ben too much and you know, say keep girls or make certain things happen, it might be to the detriment of the ultimate goal but do we produce the show? Of course, it’s not a documentary. We don’t just follow those people around. We know there are certain issues that we will push the envelope and we’ll push those situations. And tthat is because we have this finite amount of time to make this happen. And so we do accelerate everything. It’s like you put this dating process over a Bunsen Burner, and it boils. And it boils quickly. And you know, I know it’s hard to believe like who could do this in you know, this amount of time. But to us, it seems like a long amount of time. I’m telling you, if this is all you do and you’re doing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know, think if you date somebody, and it seems like with everybody you date. It’s like you go out on a Friday. OK, well we’ll do that again. You go out that next week maybe or get just like maybe it’s 2 weeks. So you know, in about a month, you may have 2 dates or 3 or something if you have a real life. That’s not much. On “The Bachelor” you can have 2 or 3 in a day, you know, and you talk to people and you spend hours and hours. And so, it is so accelerated, it’s hard to imagine. And they don’t go home and turn on the TV and forget. They don’t pick up their phone and talk to their friends and start thinking about somebody else. And so it really is accelerated. I always tell people the genius is this fishbowl environment that we create and where the show takes place. That is the genius. And what happens within that fishbowl is you know, natural reality that you’re seeing. But you know, we know you and you don’t really get along. It’s not hard to believe you’re gonna end up on a date together.
And that’s for several reasons though. People think a lot of times, it’s just for production. Yes, there is the television aspect of it but this there’s this other aspect of Ben needs to see true colors. He needs to see, how do you handle a situation where you’re not happy or you’re pissed off. It’s like well, actually if you put somebody in an extraordinary situation, you can’t fake your way through that. If you’re about to fall off a bridge and you’re scared to death, literally scared to death, all of a sudden, you’re not faking it, you’re not thinking about how I look on TV. All you think about is am I wetting myself? And so with Ben, there’s kind of twofold. How is Ben taking care of me? Is he taking care of me? Does he make me feel safe? Does he protect me, or is he just worried about himself right now or is he worried about the cameras? So all these things that you think are very superficial and surface, there’s a reason for it and it goes much deeper than that falling off a bridge or whatever. And it’s interesting to me the psychology behind it and watching us force these issues and what the conclusion is. And then how it comes to a definite end. You know, you look at one of my favorite dates ever was, in the Badlands, we have Kelsey and Ashley and it was unbelievable television to watch the shape shifting going on and crying, and then there was anger, and there was this. And again, that’s something that you need to see as a Bachelor and then you’re like “Oh, there it is. There’s the real person. I’m gonna leave you in the desert”.
You’ve got 28 women on the show, so how many women sign up for the show? And how do you weed out the fame whores?
The first part is it really depends on the casting. Lacey Heverton, who’s our casting director, works for us full time, 12 months of the year, we are always casting. She is incredible at what she does. We’ve had different casting directors. Throughout the years, we’ve kind of gone back and forth and used multiple people. But now we just have this set group, that same house because you know, the show’s been going on so long, you have to keep going. She’s just so good at, you know, again, this is the story before the story that you’ll never know about. What we’re looking for is not crazy, not drama, not you know, not the thing that you would think of. We’re looking for a good story, we really are.
Kelsey is a good example. She’s the one that was left in the Badlands that had the husband. We kept her because she was an incredible story. She really had this fascinating story. She’s a doctor, incredibly intelligent, she’s beautiful. She lost her husband and she’s kind of dealt with that pain and said that she’s ready to come back. That is a compelling story and that is phenomenal to watch and expose and show. That’s all we really thought we were getting. That’s more than enough. What we ended up getting…
We all laugh, including Chris.
Again, that’s the show. That’s the genius. You don’t know what you’re going to get and that’s why you bring in this woman from New York and San Francisco, and Iowa, and Alabama, and we don’t dress them. And we don’t do their hair and make-up because we want “you to dress how you look”, and “you to dress how you look”. We dress The Bachelor and Bachelorette but we don’t dress the people that are on the show. The first night, we will help them, hair and make-up and some powder, whatever, but only the first night cause it’s such a crazy long night. But other than that, you’re completely 100% left to your own devices because, how do you get ready? All the girls have to get ready and this isn’t on camera. This is again, the dynamic of what it takes to find love, you know, how do you get ready?
Are you bitchy? By the time we get to the party, are you happy? Can you get along with others? You know, do you have dresses? How do you dress and you know again, it’s all these things go into the overall (production). So we cast the show really looking for good stories. The fame whores, the people that are there for their 15 minutes or whatever, that’s inevitable. And again, it’s just this generation. I don’t think that there’s anybody that wakes up and doesn’t want that now. But the great thing is our show’s never been predicated on the fact that there’s 28 people there all 100% sincere, this is always gonna perfect. It’s not perfect. Dating is not perfect and if our show was, it would be insincere and it wouldn’t work. The reason our show is, it can fail. It has its issues just like the dating process, it’s not perfect. That’s what we all empathize with. We’ve all been dumped. We’ve all fallen for the wrong guy or girl. We’ve all made mistakes. But we all want that thing at the end that maybe it can work. Just like I do when I date right now, I have to figure out OK, she’s beautiful, great. But is she here for my money? Does she like the fact that I host The Bachelor or that I have fame? Does she you know, again everyone has asked those questions. You meet a guy at a bar, synagogue, church, library, you still have to answer these questions, like who is he really? Who is she really? What are they about? This show really accelerates finding that personality. You will get exposed. And it’s not just because Ben’s doing it, it’s because he has a lot of help. We are really good at what we do now. We’re very good. And I tell everybody at the beginning, off camera, I say “look, there’s someone in this room, has a boyfriend or girlfriend back home, you’re doing something shady, you’re doing, don’t, stop. Leave now or just stop what you’re doing because guess what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna be found out and this is gonna end up with me and you on a driveway somewhere having a really awkward conversation.”
And on camera?
On camera. And guess who’s gonna win? Me. I always win. I always find out and I always win. I always have the same word, it’s my show. Don’t do it. And then 3 weeks later…
Would you ever consider to be The Bachelor yourself?
Considerate it, sure. (he laughs) Well I mean as a producer on the show, I get how great that would be. It would be great television. I think my hot tub days have probably passed on television. So I think what I would do is like cause we know, we can do that in post (production) now, I’d bring in my Shawn Lowe as like as my ab double. It would be like I would do this and then my, cut to Shawn. (we are all laughing) And then, you know, click over like Ben’s dimples or something like that. There would be very few shots of me, full body.
Had we made this sausage for 15 years and knowing how it’s all done, no, it really would. I’m just, you really do have to walk into this with a certain sense of naiveté in a sense. That’s why it worked for Ben. That’s why it works for Shawn and Kaitlyn and all that is they really, while they think they know because they’ve been on a season, they have no clue. They really have no clue. When you’re just a part of the cast and you’re not the person, you don’t have an idea really what goes on. Cause you just seeing small glimpses. And you know, to be The Bachelor, I know these people. I’ve helped raise some of them. They started with us when they were 18 years old. Now they’re 30 year-olds and running my life. So to give my life to them, well that would just be so awkward and so bizarre. And I’m so worried and cognizant in producing the show that you know, I’d be having a conversation with you and I’m thinking OK, do we have the content we need? Am I getting me, is the lighting good? Are we gonna want me to go to this spot, and I think it would be a tragic (mess). It wouldn’t work because I wouldn’t be thinking about what I need to be thinking about and that is, finding love and just going through the process. So long story, short, not until ABC comes and says, “look, here’s 50 million dollars!” (Laughing)
What if one of your kids wanted to do it?
If one of my kids wanted to do it, honestly, someone asked me that the other day, I’d be 100% fine with it. My son would never do it but I can see my daughter taking my job. (laughing) In 10 years, when I’m coming out in a walker and my daughter’s like “I got this”. But no, I mean, you go back to the Kaitlyn thing and you know, my hope is that I have instilled in my children, the things that mean the most to them, their family, their faith, how to carry themselves and what they’re responsible for. If they choose to then go do it on The Bachelor or whatever, as long as they still know that they have to come home and see their family and answer to it, that’s fine with me.
I can’t thank Chris Harrison enough for giving so much time into this interview. He was fantastic to speak to and really made it that no question was off limits.
*I was invited by Disney and ABC to interview Chris Harrison for Season 20 of the Bachelor. All opinions are my own.
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