Chris Harrison has made his first public comments since exiting The Bachelor back in 2021 following a tense situation involving his apparent defense of a contestant’s racist past. Harrison had voluntarily stepped down as host after attempting to downplay unearthed photos of Rachel Kirkconnell attending an antebellum-themed party, which did not go well for him. Harrison made the poor choice of defending Kirkconnell from Extra‘s first Black lead anchor, Rachel Lindsay, which only added fuel to the controversy.
While there were behind-the-scenes attempts to reinstate Harrison, those plans were squashed after another disastrous interview with Michael Strahan, who was not thrilled with Harrison’s apology nor the network’s attempt to rehabilitate him so he could return to The Bachelor. That interview ended Harrison’s shot at coming back and sparked a contentious negotiation over his severance pay as he allegedly threatened to spill secrets.
However, Harrison is back with a new podcast, and he opened up for the first episode by addressing the elephant in the room. Via The Wrap:
“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.”
Harrison admits that he was “being sloppy, wrong, inappropriate in that moment,” and that the “timing” of the whole thing didn’t help. That timing being the recent George Floyd protest. While Harrison seems to genuinely understand what he did wrong, he still stands by his defense of Kirkconnell and his overall point that “we must have grace and patience for people or else you’re just getting nonsensical, reactive emotion.”
Harrison also blasted pundits on both the right and left for using him for their “political purposes.”
(Via The Wrap)