Chris Harrison Dishes the Dirt: Calls ‘The Bachelor’ Toxic

It took some thorns to get here, but Chris Harrison’s ‘horrifying’ reflection on ‘The Bachelor’ exit reminds us that sometimes the real drama is off-camera.

Two years have passed, but time doesn’t seem to heal all wounds, especially if your name is Chris Harrison and your former gig was hosting ‘The Bachelor’. Recently, Harrison got candid about his reality TV departure, branding the whole environment as ‘toxic’. The dramatic exit came after he went to bat for ex-contestant Rachael Kirkconnell against racism allegations, a controversy that made headlines and blew up into a nationally discussed issue. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he describes his egress as downright “horrifying”—a word typically reserved for haunted house experiences or a first glimpse of your morning hair, rather than a fall from reality TV grace. But for Chris, it seems the terror was all too real.