Chris Harrison, the long-time presenter of The Bachelorette, has announced his final departure from the program only hours after the 17th season premiered.
Why is Chris Harrison stepping away from “The Bachelor”?
Chris Harrison will get a rose of his own in the form of a mid-range eight-figure compensation and a pledge to keep his mouth shut after starring in Mike Fleiss’ The Bachelor and all of its successful ABC spinoffs since 2002. When the deal is made public later today, the customary clichés are likely to be exchanged for public consumption, but there is no romance in the air.
Although there were rumblings of Chris Harrison‘s irreversible separation with the Bachelorverse when it was reported last week that Fleiss buddy David Spade and others will be guest-hosting the upcoming season of Bachelor in Paradise this summer, the exact nature of the ultimate split was unknown until this morning.
Chris Harrison’s representatives have been in increasingly heated discussions with WBTV and, to a lesser extent, Disney-owned ABC in the previous several days, citing the Bachelorette debut as their event horizon.
It was the legal loose ends that remained after that type of deadline passed yesterday night, with the money problem addressed.
Will Chris Harrison be coming back?
Following another round of back-and-forth between the parties and Bachelor broadcaster ABC on Monday night, a private deal with franchise producers and distributor Warner Horizon was ultimately achieved. Chris Harrison’s lawyer Bryan Freedman promised to unleash the Shiva of lawsuits revealing a swath of The Bachelor‘s alleged dirty laundry until his Gersh-repped client felt the cash love, which served as a driving undertone throughout.
When asked for comment on the settlement, neither Harrison’s, WBTV’s, nor ABC’s representatives responded. When we hear back from them, we’ll let you know.
Chris Harrison was pushed out of the series earlier this year after providing Rachael Kirkconnell a pass and “compassion” in an interview after photographs of the Season 25 contestant engaging in an Old South slave plantation-themed fraternity formal surfaced in 2018.
As the reaction from the interview and Kirkconnell’s racially barbed party developed, a strongly pushed and regretful Harrison said around Valentine’s Day that he would be “standing away” from the inaugural season of The Bachelor, which will include a Black man at its center.
What will happen to the Bachelor franchise and Chris Harrison?
Bachelor Matt James gave Kirkconnell the final rose on the March 15 Season 25 finale, highlighting the hazards of prerecording in this scenario. After the antebellum South images were public after Bachelor production wrapped, James made it obvious on the Emmanuel Acho-hosted After the Rose special that same night that he had broken up with Kirkconnell. Later, the pair announced that they were trying to reconcile.
The Bachelor franchise and Chris Harrison are now at odds. The deal does not address how successfully or fast Fleiss, WB, and ABC will be able to sustain the business.
