Chris Harrison Is Officially Out As Host Of “The Bachelor” Franchise And Was Reportedly Paid Eight Figures To Go Away
The only person getting richer than Logan Paul and Floyd Mayweather this week is going to be Chris Harrison. The former host of The Bachelor series has lost his gig for good. 49-year-old Chris had been the host of the show since it debuted in 2002 but got put in a timeout recently. Chris defended a contestant on the previous season of The Bachelor, Rachael Kirkconnell, from the “woke police” after she was found to have participated in some highly racist Antebellum balls. Chris went away for some classes from a race educator but I guess that wasn’t enough. Because he’s not coming back to the show. But don’t cry for him, Bachelor Nation. It’s been reported he was paid eight figures to leave. Um, when can I get fired and then be rich enough to never have to work again as a consequence?
Chris had himself a really good paying gig on shows like The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Bachelor In Paradise. He just had to show up, count some roses, say the number of roses out loud, and it was basically a wrap. Dream job! And for millions! But he blew that shit up when he decided to cape incredibly hard for partying in the name of racism. And you know what’s funny? Rachael and her Bachelor, Matt James, actually got back together after breaking up over her past.
It was announced last week that the next season of Bachelor In Paradise will be hosted by guest hosts including David Spade. And the new season of The Bachelorette, which premiered last night, is co-hosted by previous Bachelorettes, Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe. Today, Deadline confirmed that Chris is not coming back and it seems he wasn’t going to go down without a cash-prize fight:
Having fronted the Mike Fleiss-created The Bachelor and all its lucrative ABC spinoffs since 2002, Harrison will receive a rose of his own in the form of mid-range eight-figure payoff and promise to keep his mouth shut, I hear. The usual platitudes are expected to be exchanged for public consumption when the agreement is made public later today, but there is certainly no romance in the air behind the scenes.
While whispers over Harrison’s permanent breakup with the Bachelorverse were all over town after it was revealed last week that Fleiss pal David Spade and others would be guest-hosting the next season of Bachelor in Paradise this summer, the form of the final split itself was uncertain until early this morning. Penciling in the Bachelorette premiere as their event horizon, Harrison’s reps have been in increasingly intense negotiations over the past few days with WBTV and, to a lesser extent, Disney-owned ABC.
After that deadline of sorts came and passed last night with the money issue resolved, it was the legal stray ends that remained.
The confidential settlement with franchise producers and distributor Warner Horizon was finally reached after one more flurry of back and forth between the parties and Bachelor broadcaster ABC on Monday night. A motivational undercurrent, so to speak, throughout was Harrison lawyer Bryan Freedman pledging to unleash the Shiva of lawsuits exposing a swath of The Bachelor’s alleged dirty laundry unless his Gersh-repped client emerged feeling the financial love.
Chris issued his own statement about not getting a rose from ABC:
So like Megyn Kelly before him, Chris Harrison got millions upon millions of dollars to not work anymore. But also like Megyn, I’m sure that Chris will not be able to stay away. So as ABC pulls out another host bot to replace Chris, expect him to announce his new show, Race Today with Megyn and Chris, exclusively on Megyn’s YouTube channel!
Pic: Wenn.com