The longtime 'Bachelor' host dishes to ET on getting Colton Underwood back after he quit the show during filming.
It's not uncommon for Bachelors and Bachelorettes to push themselves to the breaking point, at least according to Chris Harrison.
ET's Tanner Thomason sat down with the Bachelor host as he filmed his upcoming cameo appearance on Single Parents on Thursday, where he opened up about Colton Underwood quitting the series, and revealed that several other Bachelor franchise leads have almost done the same.
"I mean, it happens a lot. It happens more than you think," Harrison confessed. "There's varying degrees of it, there's varying degrees of getting fed up in how you express your anger, in how you express your emotions. He happens to be the most athletic SOB we've ever had, so he was able to express it like an Olympian [by jumping over a fence and quitting], but they all get there."
"I remember, Rachel [Lindsay] is someone who comes to mind, who was unbelievably headstrong. Being a lawyer, I think she was just more authoritative and more articulate about it. And while she's also athletic, she kind of expressed [her frustration] in different ways," he recalled. "That's one of the great things about being a host and a producer. You're kind of a psychologist, figuring these people out, what makes them tick, how do we help them, how do we guide them, and it's different for all of them."
Harrison said that despite the dramatic promo airing after last week's episode, we still have "a few episodes" before Underwood makes his highly anticipated Bachelor escape.
"It was like a gazelle being chased by a cheetah, and in this case, I would have been the cheetah chasing Colton, and he leapt that fence and was gone," Harrison marveled, explaining that instead of following him over the seven and a half foot gate, he "calmly pushed the button and opened the fence." "Colton, he was done. He was done with this moment and ready to get away, and he took this fence."
The longtime Bachelor host hilariously revealed that he later tried to see if he could pull off the fence jump, but in that moment, it was all about trying to track down Underwood.
"That's where the relationship comes in. That's where the work that the producers and I have done over the years and getting to know Colton and getting to talk to him... it's not just some random guy coming up and saying, 'Dude, let's talk about this.' It's me, it's our producers. And he knows that deep down, we care as much, if not more, than he does about all this," Harrison said.
"One thing I love about any Bachelor or Bachelorette is when they're headstrong, and they're independent and they want things their way. This is their life, and I know it's entertainment, and I know we're shooting a show, but this really is their life," he expressed. "They all kind of get to a pushing point where it's so serious for them that they just want things to stay on course. And when they feel like they're losing control, they fight for it back. And Colton was fighting for it, and kudos to him. I like that. I like to see the fight."
Harrison said that if he doesn't see that "fight" within Bachelor franchise leads, "what I feel is you're apathetic and you don't care." "You should care. This is your life. This is hopefully the woman of your dreams and somebody you're going to spend the rest of your life with. You should care about that. You should want to fight for that, you should want to leap over a fence for that," he continued. "That's kind of where he was. He was, when push came to shove, he was ready to push back."
"You'll see how it plays out. The one thing I love about this show in this day and age is it's very raw, very organic. We don't have to go back and edit a lot. You're going to see it all, warts and all, and it's not pretty. It's not pretty for the producers, it's not pretty for him. We all kind of look bad in certain parts of this," Harrison concluded. "But I think to be honest, and our fans are savvy enough, you gotta see that. You're going to want to see that."
Single Parents airs Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT and The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. Join ET's Bachelor Nation Facebook group here.
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