Chris Harrison, the former host of The Bachelor, has finally opened up about the severe emotional toll the cancellation campaign took on him in 2021.
Harrison exited the hit franchise after hosting for nearly 20 years in 2021 after a woke mob targeted him for defending a contestant who had attended an Antebellum South-themed party prior to coming on the show. Though Harrison did not defend the party she attended, the host did ask that people have a little grace and compassion for a past mistake. For that, Harrison was ousted from his longtime hosting gig. As UPI reported at the time:
Longtime Bachelor host Chris Harrison has permanently exited the reality TV series franchise.
TMZ reported Tuesday that Harrison, 49, has left the franchise for good after 20 years as host.
Us Weekly said Harrison will receive an eight-figure payout from ABC. Harrison reportedly reached the settlement hours after the premiere of Katie Thurston’s season of The Bachelorette on Monday.
In the opening of his new podcast, titled The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever with Chris Harrison, Harrison said that he felt “sick” at the time, adding that he lost 20 pounds due to lack of sleep and food.
“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 fianceé [Lauren Zima]… I worried about my kids…” Harrison said. “I’m a bit of an empath, and I am very loyal to a fault, and I am a team player.”
Though Harrison apologized at the time, he noted that was not enough for some people.
“I had no problem putting out that first apology,” he said. “But there was just so much noise at the time, it just didn’t matter. Apologies didn’t matter.”
“Even after that apology, we were still at ground zero,” Harrison continued. “It was confusing and it was scary.”
Harrison said that he felt disappointed by how his initial comments were conveyed during the interview with former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay.
“When this happened… while I was sick to my stomach… I felt so disappointed that the interview went that way… 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… it’s just not me,” he said.
Harrison clarified the point he tried and failed to make in the interview.
“One point I was trying to make in the infamous interview and did not make eloquently, is people need time to think and to process… I wanted to step away. I wanted to think and learn… change… go through everything I went through personally before I had this talk,” he said on the podcast.
Despite the pain he feels from no longer being with the series that he says has “changed dramatically,” he ultimately has no regrets about his 19-year turn on the show.
“It’s something that I took pride in building… I was the face and the voice of the show… I was the constant for 19 years,” he said.
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