Having fronted the Mike Fleiss-created The Bachelor and its rewarding ABC spinoffs because 2002, Harrison will be given a rose of his own in the shape of mid century eight-figure payoff and promise to keep his mouth closed, I hear. The typical platitudes are expected to be exchanged for public consumption once the arrangement is made public after today, but there is certainly no romance in the atmosphere behind the scenes.
While whispers over Harrison’s permanent separation using the Bachelorverse were over town after it was revealed last week which Fleiss pal David Spade and others would be guest-hosting the next season of Bachelor in Paradise this summer, the form of the end split itself was uncertain until early this morning. Penciling in the Bachelorette premiere because their event horizon, Harrison’s reps are in increasingly intense negotiations over the past few times with WBTV and, to a lesser extent, Disney-owned ABC.
After that deadline of types came and passed last night with all the money issue solved, it had been the lawful stray ends that stayed.
The private settlement with franchise producers and distributor Warner Horizon was finally reached after a 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 attorney Bryan Freedman pledging to unleash the Shiva of lawsuits exposing a swath of The Bachelor’s alleged dirty laundry unless his Gersh-repped customer emerged feeling the fiscal love.
Neither repetitions for Harrison, WBTV nor ABC returned request for comment on the settlement when contacted by Deadline.
Harrison was pushed aside in the franchise before this season after offering in a meeting a pass and”empathy” to Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell over 2018 pictures that surfaced of this Season 25 contestant engaging in an Old South slave plantation-themed fraternity formal. As the fallout from the interview and Kirkconnell’s racist barbed party immediately climbed, a strongly nudged and apologetic Harrison declared around Valentine’s Day he could be”stepping aside” from the first period of The Bachelor to have a Black guy at its core.
