Four years after stepping down as the host of ABC’s The Bachelor franchise, Chris Harrison has no regrets about his decision.
“It feels wonderful, and thanks for asking that, because I wasn’t sure it would,” Harrison told People in an interview published on Monday, October 27. “You know, when you do something every single day for two decades, and it’s so popular around the world, there is a pressure to that, and there’s a spotlight and a microscope that you don’t even realize you’re under until you kinda get off that merry-go-round.”
Harrison noted that he felt “angst” when he first departed the series, but “falling in love” with his now-wife, Lauren Zima, and moving to Austin, Texas, “helped” with the transition. “[I realized,] ‘Wow, there’s a whole other world out here to dive into.’ And so it has been a wonderful break and relief,” he said.
Harrison served as the host of The Bachelor since its premiere in 2022, and went on to lead the show’s many spinoffs, including The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, The Bachelor Winter Games, and The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart.
Harrison took a step back from the franchise during Matt James‘ Season 25 of The Bachelor in 2021, during which photos of contestant Rachael Kirkconnell attending an antebellum-themed party in college resurfaced online. Harrison faced backlash for supporting Kirkconnell in an interview with Rachel Lindsay, who made history as The Bachelorette‘s first Black leading lady.
ABC/Craig Sjodin
“Is it a good look in 2018 or is it not a good look in 2021? Because there’s a big difference,” he told Lindsay. “I don’t disagree with you. You’re 100 percent right in 2021. That was not the case in 2018. I’m not defending Rachael. I just know that, I don’t know, 50 million people did that in 2018. That was a type of party that a lot of people went to.”
Though Harrison apologized for his comments, he officially stepped down from his hosting role in June 2021. Jesse Palmer took over as the franchise’s permanent host later that year.
In the years since, Harrison relocated from Los Angeles to Austin and wed Zima in 2023. “I mean, what I love most about the new chapter is the fact that Austin is the new Hollywood which means the opportunities are a plenty here,” he said of his current home. “There is so much tech, music, food, entertainment, theater. It’s all happening here. And it reminds me of what Hollywood was built on, which is anything and everything is possible if everybody will just come in with an honest, open heart and mind and just wanna do some fun work together.”
Earlier this month, Harrison expressed whether he has any interest in returning to Bachelor Nation. “The answer is no. But for a very good reason,” she told Ben Higgins and Wells Adams on the Almost Famous podcast. “It was an amazing love affair for a very long time, and as someone who’s now married for the second time, I think you are with people and people come into your life for a season for a reason, and that show was wonderful to me and my family, I think, for a season.”
He continued, “I will always have fondness and love in my heart for it. For the friendships I made, the people in front of and behind the camera. I traveled the world. I never really traveled that much the way I grew up. This show gave me the ability to travel the world and see every corner of it 10 times over. A lot of blessings came from it, but to try to get back into that relationship … I wouldn’t be there for the right reasons.”