Chris Harrison is a television and game show host, best known for his role as the host of the ABC reality TV dating.
Show The Bachelor.
He also hosted its many spinoffs, The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, and more. In twenty twenty one, Chris announced that he will be temporarily stepping aside from the franchise. Since then, Chris got engaged to his fiance Lauren Zima, and now hosts his own iHeartRadio podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever. This is just be with Chris Harrison. Let's get into it.
Hi, Hi bethany how are you good?
Have I don't know that we've have we ever met in person?
We never have, which is bizarre.
I know, I don't know.
When I read your bio, it says your best known own for your role on the Bachelor and Bachelorette and the spinoffs. But I don't know how you got started. I don't know what your trajectory was to get to that.
I was a sportscaster. I played soccer in college, and then from college got into sportscasting, slash news and all that stuff, and Oklahoma City just the local CBS affiliate, and then went on to start a horse racing network in LA and then did game shows and Home and Garden Show and then Bachelor.
Oh okay, so you're very passionate about sports. That was just the like hook you had to get in.
No, I was passionate about about playing it. It was funny. I always loved playing it more than I did covering it. But it was kind of this natural transition when I was in college and just fell in love with TV.
And you've never thought about getting back into the sports world in the professional space like I did.
I thought about it, but the honestly, the hour suck. It's like today, I'm leaving and flying out to go see the US Open golf tournament, and instead I would have been working it. So I went to the Super Bowl and I went all those things, but I was alone sitting there on press row, going, oh, remind yourself to have fun because you're sitting here alone when everybody's home having parties.
Right, right.
But you and I have very similar trajectories.
Interesting, So how long have you been engaged?
Gosh, good question?
Who cares? Right? Who cares that?
It's a year?
Okay?
Did you find that in the beginning people are asking you? And now no one really cares what you do.
Like they're asking you when you're getting married, any planning wedding?
Now it's yeah, Now it goes to when when you're getting married and what you know you're planning, where is it going to be, and all that good stuff.
Oh, they're still there with us.
They don't mean they don't even care, Like, oh really, yeah, and what's your answer.
We're getting married soon, we actually have a wedding plan.
Oh oh so no, we're not in the same boat because we're in the same boat that we're both engaged. But like, I have the question all the time, and I don't really have a great reason why we're not planning a wedding. I think the best reason is just that I don't want to, Like I don't want I we we are.
It feels cheesy. We feels like we're married.
They are life partners, which I think people think is a weird thing to say, just like using that sort of formal terminology. It's like very like modern terminology. But I hate that when the question gets asked, it's like a good like sort of talk show question, and I'm just like, I don't.
Know, that's what, Well, that's funny. Yes, that's why I got engaged because I was like, I can't call you my girlfriend. Yes, and you're more than that because you live we live together, we have this life together and so and I'm not cool enough for whatever to say life partner. I don't even know what that means. So I'm like, okay, let's get this is the next step. Let's get engaged.
Right.
No, And fiance is weird too, isn't it?
Now?
For you?
It is? Yeah, Now that's silly. That's it's more.
It's almost more stupid because it's like younger. It sounds like you're twenty three.
It does. It does make me feel.
There you wouldn't know, Oh my god, you would know more than anyone.
Yeah.
Yeah, No, I mean it's like and I and I was married previously, and so you know, I was young. I was in my twenty and so it felt natural. And so when I say, oh, she's my fiancee, it makes me feel like I'm in college again or I just got engaged. Yeah, And so it is this weird kind of purgatory where we're not here, we're not there yet. So I'm like, okay, now it's time to do and That's how I always felt about all my relationships. Is when it doesn't feel right anymore and you feel like, okay,
I'm lying to everybody, It's time let's go public. Okay, I'm tired of calling you my girlfriend. Let's get engaged. I don't want to call you my so that when when you get that feeling it's time to move on.
Yeah, and not to bring up a sensitive word, but will you have a bachelor party or no?
Way?
You know it's funny no, but yes, like I don't want to have a bachelor party bay any means again talk about something I did when I was twenty three. But I will probably grab some of my dearest friends and will go play golf or something.
Just want to make meaning.
Yeah, exactly like be with people I love and we'll call it a bachelor party. But yeah, we're not going out. You know, we're not going to a strip club. We're not doing any of this stupid stuff that I didn't even love when I was twenty three, right, Yeah, that.
It's funny because I don't know, I think you're younger than I am. You do you mind if I have I'm fifty one, Oh, so you're a year younger, so we are very similar.
Well, I think it's weird the more I talk about, like, I can't believe we haven't met, I know, because we have very parallel lives on so many levels. It's really bizarre.
I know.
And you're the East Coast version.
On the East Coast version, you took a really sort of like traditional work entertainment path, but you know what I mean. And I'm like rogue in that way. So it's a parallel, different circuitist path. But funny to think about the fact that both I wouldn't have thought of yours as risky and scary. However, thinking about you being partners with such a big network that you know, Disney owns ABC right like that. I know from Eric stone Street,
I'm modern family like he won't. He's still sort of trained to not say so things, to not be a certain way. He can't believe the things that I say when he can say, I'm too. He's not on the show anymore. But people who live in that world have to adhere to such a code.
Oh, for sure. You definitely got to stay between these little navigational beacons.
For sure, Yes, and you know, find your little ways of like blinking twice to say something that might be almost inappropriate but not quite like being on a morning talk show, you know, and I'm on the Today Show. I'll like say things that are sort of winking to the audience, but you can't really say what I would normally say.
And so I.
Wouldn't have thought that your path would be scary. I think that my path is sometimes scary because I, you know, borderline really getting in trouble for being opinionated. So I wonder have you felt do you feel free now in your career, like you can really you could kind of do or say anything you want.
Now, right?
Yeah, Well, I mean, and you bring up a good point, like there was safety in my job for so long because my job kept me in that little space and so as long as I stayed in that little space, and I didn't speak out on politics or anything, which by the way, I never did. Anyway, I never brought it in to the show because I felt like that's what people were getting away from when they wanted to come to me and my show. It's like they're if you want that, go go elsewhere. You come here to
escape and get away from it all. So my brand was never being this outspoken proponent of anything, whereas your brand kind of was you were known as this brash, really outspoken speak you know and kind of shoot from the hip. And so yeah, I could see how your life would be a little bit scarier from day to day as opposed to my My thing was kind of lined up for me. Your original question of do you feel more free one hundred percent doing this, having my own brand, my own name, my own title. I'm not.
And also there's safety in having quote unquote been canceled. You know, it's kind of being pregnant. It's kind of like being pregnant, like can I get pregnant again? So there's some Yeah, there's safety in that. So and I think people that love me and supported me, they're with me anyway. So and the people that don't don't don't be with me, don't listen, don't watch. But yeah, I feel a lot more free to speak my mind and be a little bit more honest.
What about something being part of your DNA and not even realizing it, like walking away leaving the Housewives for me, Yeah, albeit by choice. I kept thinking about like even it was like an x X that I was not in love with but I was still thinking about them, like are they calling? Do I call them? What are they doing? Like what are they up to? Like I was still
connect I thought that was the only world. I thought that everybody knew what the housewives were, and I know in the stratosphere they do like in the ether, but I thought that everybody was like talking about, you know, what an Orange County housewives doing, and they weren't because it was just something I was connected to. So I checked back in and then one day, just like an X, it just dissolves and off of you and it's not part of you, it's just somebody that you used to know.
It is that it is very cathartic, and you're right, it is like it's very much as a relationship and a breakup, And mine was kind of the same way where it was. I mean, the best I could say is it was mutual. It definitely wasn't against me, like I wasn't fired, but I didn't exactly quit. It was
kind of this mutual thing agreement, if you will. But when you've been a part of something for twenty years and you are so synonymous with it, like you were putting you really put housewives on the Map and became synonymous with it, and I was the same way you think a bachelor, you think of Chris Harrison, and so I prided myself in that and I tried to never be known as that personally, Like I didn't want to identify as that. But you almost can't help it because that's what you do.
I know, like in some world you're, you know, winning Academy Awards for real films, like you're Jim Carrey trying to get out of comedy being a real actor.
Meaning, well, that.
Never bothered me, like I was so. No, I was never the guy that was like, oh, please, don't just know me as this guy about you. No, I'm totally cool with that. Believe me. I'll all hand out roses still the day I die, I know where my bread was buttered. And I totally respected that. And to this day, it's funny because people I'm still synonymous with the show. People either still assume I'm on the show or they just asked me about it and whatever. I'm and I'm
so grateful for it. I'm so it changed my life and I'm I'll never be mad about that. No, I just meant like, personally, it didn't identify like I have a different life, and I lived my own life as far as my relationships and my friends and that goes. But when you leave a show, it's still very much a part of you. And there was a bit of a like you said, that breakup is interesting because it is like I was, could have done it for another
five or ten years. Was I still in love with her? No, it wasn't the same.
But I didn't even know.
You're in a relationship and now you're like still thinking about who are they sleeping with even though.
They're going through the motions.
Yeah, I'm saying ABC, and it's people they're casting in your position. You're looking at how they're doing. Well are they It's just like a really are they happy? Who are they sleeping with? Is it working?
Like you know what I mean?
Did you take any sort of solace or happiness out of the fact that Housewives dips after Bethany Frankel leaves.
Well, I mean yeah, I mean yeah, big time.
I'll tell you two things. One, because you may go back one day. I read like you know, you've talked about it and you never know, and I could see it happening, you know, time heals all wounds. Yeah, the ratings went from three million to one point six. I think it was I was a big and then I came back and they went back up, and I felt wow. And you do think about the fear based culture and how people don't play the long game. There are a
lot of business lessons to be learned. It's not that easy to work with big networks as you've done, because they're just always playing scared.
They have to right.
They're not smart business people making really smart business decisions. And you're an amazing business woman considering everything that you've done subsequently from the housewives. And when people don't think like that, it's really hard to work with them. When they're not making even common sense choices that you know will benefit everybody, that you know will lead to success, it's hard to work in that space.
Well, also, you're working so by doing what you were doing, you're working in a corporate environment no matter what, like it doesn't matter that you're a creative or entertainer, you're in a corporate environment. So so I just launched a YouTube series, but like a real produced twenty minute it's a television show.
It's just YouTube.
Is the network and I never understood how I could participate there in that way because I could carry a show, and it's so liberating to do like a content to the people model like you're doing on your podcast. Now you don't have to go ask the hall monitor for permission. Five suits tell you it's a good idea, it's a bad idea. We're waiting for legal to let us know if you're in or you're out or whatever next season
pick up. It's kind of at a certain level after working for so many years, you kind of feel powerless, like you it's not your choice, And I feel that there's something nice about this modern time and a career for someone like you or myself that is like freedom, Like you could go say whatever you want right today and make it entertainment and people will listen.
The paradigm is shifted completely. It's really done A one eighty. I. You know, when you and I got in this business again, we're about the same age and kind of interested it. Around the same time, there was this dynamic of does Bethany Frankel represent our brand?
It?
You know, is she is it okay that we have her? Well, now that paradigm's completely done A one eighty. Do the people you work for represent you?
Oh? Yeah?
Howard Stern is a rare occurrence of pushing through. Yeah, the man, you know, he's a rare, rare occurrence.
Back he was.
Really the first of the breed. He was way ahead of his time. I mean, he is a genie on so many levels, not only one of the best interviewers of our time, but you're right, he was kind of the first to show us we should have looked at that model twenty years ago.
Yeah, push through. I'm going to say what I want to.
Yeah, it's because well because they're saying I relate to that, because you know, not everyone likes me, and that's okay. They want to even if they don't like me. The sort of research says they want to hear what I have to say. They love to hate me, So it's not if they hate to hate me, we're in trouble. They like to like they love to love me, or they love to hate me, but they don't hate to hate me.
You know what kills apathy. I always say when it was the Bachelor Bacherette, people would say, why was this person good to this? And I said, look, I don't care if you hate this person. I don't care if you love this person, as long as you have a real strong feeling one way or the other. What will kill me and kill the show is if you say I don't care or blah fast forward like Bethany, eh, I don't really have an opinion. I don't care, but yeah, you're right, love you or hate you. I want to
hear what you're saying. That matters, and someone who moves the needle is what matters.
Interesting.
So the way that this podcast today happened was you were on the phone with Amy, the producer for she produces yours too or no.
Yeah she does, yes, I'm with my heart as well.
So she was like, I'm on the other phone with Chris Harrison, and I said, Chris, well, I didn't say I don't think I said you hated me because I don't think that you do. I don't think you care. I mean respectfully. But I said no, He like, tell him you're on the other phone with me, because he said, like an he said a nasty thing about me in an article, and correct me if I'm wrong. I was
single because you're doing what you're doing. Someone said, would you ever date Bethany and you're like, I don't like her. I don't like the way she treated her father or spoke about her father. And now I heard you just say, I didn't even know that you did a horse racing show. So for everyone listening to, my father is a hall of fame, was a Hall of fame horse trainer, one
of the greatest horse trainers of all time. And I was thinking, A, I didn't know that you even knew him, and you must have known him like through the business, but you weren't his best friend. I mean, you are like Joe Torre, who's his best friend?
I think, right? And and so I read that and was like, what the fuck is So?
Yeah, So I got asked, this is back when I was single, and I don't remember the article or whatever, but something you had said something about your dad or something like that. So this is this the weirdest story that I.
Think I had said. I don't.
I think I had said something. It might have been on the show because I talked about it, or it might have been even earlier on the Today Show. And I said, I don't because it was Father's Day, Countess, I don't really have a father, because I really didn't.
That was it? Yeah, that was it? So, and so I knew your dad. It's funny, So I knew your dad, I didn't know much about you, and honestly, when you came to be I had known your dad much better than I didn't. It took me a while before I even realized you two were connected.
Doesn't that say a lot to you?
Yeah? It does, know, And that's why I was gonna. I wanted to talk to you about it because I wasn't best friends with your dad, but one of his very best friends was was a was another trainer slash horse person, This guy frank Lyons, this Irish guy. Okay, So Frankie was a very dear friend of mine. We worked together and did a show together.
And I know that show. Yes, that was his show. Okay.
So anytime we went to New York to Belmont to cover the Belt with anything Saratoga, we went and had dinner with your dad and went and hung out. And so I hung out with your dad many times, got to know him pretty well, to the point where you know, we we would see each other and give each other a hug and say hello. But you're right. What made me think later was how did I not know anything
about Bethany, and I knew her dad fairly well. And I'm probably the only person in this world that knew your dad and when did and worked with him on that world. It was you know, I was it was very horse centric. So obviously I was there at the races. We were talking about the races and all that. But we would go out and you know, have a great stake in New York, as your dad loved to do. But it was funny, but I never really knew. And I've read subsequently that you you know, you had a
very strained relationship, So no, I really don't know. Oh, it doesn't matter.
I just I was just had to bring it up because that's how it started. And I don't hold it against you. We did not have I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't see him from the time I was five to fourteen, and he literally said, I'm washing my hands with the whole situation about me, and then like, really, he just never was interested in being my father. And I think it's because how could I know what he thought? What I think you're now being a parent. I can't
even imagine it. He was a very he was a very horse centric person very I don't, I don't.
I'm he was selfish. I mean, he just really only thought about what was.
Going on with him and with the horses, and so it makes sense people around him who he met, you know, he liked young girls and he was fun. He go out and tell the jokes and he like, he's knows the best steak and all this stuff, and we're talking about horses. But he couldn't really relate to other people that did not have weren't in the horse community. And I was not, you know, so anyway, and my stepfather was a horse trainer too.
I don't know if you know, no Maarrisla John.
Parrislla John Bill, Yes, of course, yeah.
Yeah, so that was my stepfather. So yeah, I grew up at the racetrack, my aunt everyone, so I never ever go and I don't have a connection to it.
But yeah, anyway, I don't know why we talked about that for halfy nobody.
It is interesting because I knowing and this is a weird relationship to have with you since we had never met. Is I spent those nights with your dad in days as well, But I never really thought until later about the family dynamic because we were in those nights where we're out in Manhattan or we're doing whatever, and it wasn't really the time to have kids around or to have I know, and so and so I never thought much of it because in those nights, we're just drinking wine,
having a steak or whatever. So I didn't think, Hey, where's your daughter or yes.
And it wasn't weird that he was you know what I mean.
It wasn't It wasn't weird that he wasn't talking about you in those moments. And it would have been weird if I had said, well, tell me about your family. You know, we're just we're just shooting the ship and having a great time.
I understand, I got the whole time.
And it wasn't until later when I when you came to prominence and I put this connection together and I'm like, wait, oh my god, that's Bobby Frankel's daughter. What a weird way to get to know Bethany Frankel, because everyone knew you so differently than how I was getting to know you. Oh, totally different, different lens altogether.
And I had a whole life on the racetrack obviously as a kid going to Saratogai didn't go to camp. I was going to the bedding windows. I was going to Vegas for three weeks in a row.
The backside of a horse track is is a very interesting place to grow up.
I grew up there and I was a hot walker, no way.
So obviously the person who kind of walks the horses and gets them out and goes in the circle and that is crazy down.
That's why people don't know the expression ridden hard and put away wet about a woman. It's because it's a fill. It's a horse that hasn't been cooled down after their work.
How weird that we have this connection. Yeah, it was the last time you talked horse racing with anybody.
Never, like I never Bobby Flay a little, but really it's very little Dave Portnoy, very minimally.
Yeah.
Also I think of someone like Dave port and is like not an imposter, but like a late like I was eating pizza at this Pemona guard and before he was born, Like he's talking on horse racing because he came and like I've been. I grew up at the racetrack literally hanging out the jockeys and the jockeys agents and walking horses, and so it's one I feel like, I, you know, I'm part of that club. And if I ever go back, it's.
Like, you know, well tell me this. And it's a weird question to ask somebody now that your dad has gone, I have fun memories of him. Is that a bad thing?
No?
I have fond memories of like his charm and his like his sparkle and his charm and and frankly, and we think about genetics in being the best, like people don't. I don't say it, so I don't know why I'm saying people don't believe me. But when I say this next sentence out loud, people would be like, what, I didn't know that, Like he was probably top ten in history at that.
No, he is a legend, an absolute hall of fame legend in the sport.
Yeah, but no one knows that because I never talked. And every time there's an article and they say to me, tell us something we don't know about you, I never say that.
I don't know why.
I never think about like that. My father's a hall of fame, Like he's in the Hall of fame.
No, he's like a Bill Belichick, right coaches slash trainers. I mean, that's what these people do. He's one of the biggest races. He's he was worth, you know, he won millions and millions and millions of.
Dollars he did. But how weird?
Is this?
So okay?
So first of all, there's something connected with me and him just genetically and like winning, Like I was raised like that. Nobody cares who came second in Derby by a nose. It doesn't matter, like who, You're never going to hear that name, So who gives a shit? So I'm like a winner, like I'm gonna win or I'm not doing.
It, like it's finishing second at the Olympics.
Period, Like we could sleep or we could do it, but I don't want to do the middle. So I like, like winning or not participating, those are my two options. So I see that from there. And then I had a lot of money noise growing up because I like never knew where my stepfather. We would have six cars in the driveway and then we would only have a card table and he'd be borrowing money for me to pay off a bookie. Like it was very high low,
very degenerate racetrack lifestyle. I grew up with, so I never felt safe with money, and he didn't really help me that much he wanted. He just didn't really help me. He kind of wanted to keep me down. And like I'd go to the derby and he would be bragging to a bunch of people about all these tickets he has and he should sell them, and I'd be begging friends or people to get in, like he never want to be Yes, he wouldn't. He didn't help me in that way. He just had this thing with me.
It was weird. So I ended up making more money than him.
And I know that sounds ridiculous and I never think about it, but I'm thinking about it now. And I know because I know when he died, he left me.
Well, is it safe to say you got the because I do see attributes And again this is weird because I know your dad. I see these attributes in you of you are a badass like you. You know, I dare somebody to tell Bethany Frankel you can't do this or no, and so, yeah, this drive. But do you think you maybe took that as hopefully the next generation does, and you you bettered it. You're a better person in the way you you apply these things absolutely.
And also that now that I'd never think about this, but he was entirely unfiltered think about it. He would say anything to anyone and he didn't care.
He didn't He was such a good interview.
Right, do you want to go to dinner? No, Like, that's how I am.
Like, we don't need to get into like lube and like for play and like after cigarettes.
Like no, Like he would just say I don't want to go. That's me.
If I don't want to do something, I'll just say I don't want to do it. I don't go like, oh I have a thing with the but I'm like, yeah, no, I don't think I want to do that.
Why your dad was a tough interview like that too. If you asked a stupid question, he'd be like, that was a dumbas quoe. Yeah, he wouldn't say dumb ass, but he would say that. He's like he would let you know, you're like, damn, that was he's New York. It's like that, it's that New York.
Yes, and then some but yeah, So anyway, he was very successful that interview that happened that that was on the Today Show. It's a lesson. By the way you have gone through this, this is a good full circle thing we can do. I was doing a Father's Day episode and it was kind of relevant because it didn't really apply to me. I wasn't about to celebrate Father's Day, Like, let's not bullshit. He never even would never call me, and he'd barely call me on my birthday.
He didn't call.
So I added that piece of information on the Today Show during the Father's Day segment. But not everything needs to be said, as I'm sure you've learned.
It's true, it's.
A fact he wasn't a great father and I didn't really have a father, but it did not need to be said. So when I say that to you, I'm curious because we're living in the world of like, be honest and be upfront and use your voice and say something.
But at what call you can't make a mistake. Then you said something and the moment within a corporate infrastructure, and it might have been different if you said it now in your podcast, because not everything needs to be said, and things should be said differently in different places.
By the way, one of my least favorite sentences in the world is your your your silence is deafening. That drives me nuts, you know, because people kind of want to set you up to to fail.
Right.
It's like say something, say something, say something. You didn't say it, right, It's just like you're never going to and you know this, You're never going to please everybody. And if you go around trying to please everybody, all you're going to do is fail everybody. Like there was there was a thing with you the other day. I don't know if it's the other day, but recently you spoke out against you were critical of the Housewives, right of the franchise or whatever. And your your quote was
something about like, yeah, look I loved it. I was a part of it. But I can also be critical of it. I can be honest about it, right, And I know that.
Yeah, it's so funny because I'm not supposed to be I'm not allowed to speak on it or have a podcast that breaks it down because I left and have said negative things about it. Well, who said, what do you mean? You can't talk about your you might have hated your college. You can't talk about it.
Right, and you and two things can. And this is the toughest thing about speaking out is two things and Actually, many things can be true at the same time. I can love my time on The Bachelor, I can love that franchise, I can understand how it changed television. Same thing with Housewives. I can also be very critical of it and understand that it was problematic in many ways and there were things that I would love to have changed that I couldn't or whatever. And same thing with
you and Housewives. So all those things can be true at the same time exactly. So how can I just make one blanket statement and encapsulate all that you can't? No?
And how can you make one mistake? And it's like why was it such a big deal? Like why can't someone make a mistake? People made way worse mistakes and be was it the environment you were in? If you made the mistake on your podcast, would it be as big of a deal, And what would you change? Like how give me write the script differently? You say the same thing, but like what happens? How do you handle it?
Because this is helpful for people who get into trouble at work, say something stupid at a wedding, just fuck up in general, like we're alas, we should be allowed to fuck up.
Well, nobody should be defined by one moment in their life, in my opinion, and definitely not defined by one vulnerable, low or disappointing moment. You know, I was a firm believer when I went through what I went through. That the foundation I've laid my entire life, the man, I am the dad, I am the friend, I am the host, I was the employee. All that that foundation that I worked on for three decades almost would be the decider.
The best thing I could have done, if I had it to do over, which was control my own narrative. What the traditional going on Good Morning America couldn't have been a bigger mistake I would. I would urge anybody, if you have something real to say, do not go on Good Morning America. Ever, if you want to do a fluff piece, if you want to promote something great, but if you honestly have something serious to say, don't let somebody like Good Morning America control your narrative, control
the message. So that I would have changed where I would have gone on social media, gone on YouTube, gone on Instagram, and just spoken to you just like this. It's also the other two things, this two pronged thing of controlling my own message I would have spoken. The other thing is leadership. When you do work for somebody, you are kind of under their thumb, right, you need
some leadership. If someone of leadership, someone in a position of strength, will fill that void when they're when those two girls are chirping, right, and they just keep chirping and chirping and churning things out. The only people that can stamp that and stop that message is someone in a power position, someone of leadership. If someone of leadership says, hey, Chris Harrison's been with us for twenty years, he's a good man. We know this. Do we agree with Do
we agree with what he said? No, look we don't agree with it by any means or whatever. But that's his own words. But we know this man to be an amazing guy who will stand up for anybody and jump in front of a bus. He is our guy. We're moving on, period.
But that's why you have your own platform, because it's frightening to.
Be But if people of leadership won't do that, they just leave you kind of hung out to dry, right. And so if no one fills that void, it allows this vacuum and it allows everybody to just keep talking and talking and printing articles and the wildfire continues and all they had to do was just bon't done. We're moving on, right.
But the message for people who don't you can't know, You can't be a wizard and know what the powers that be are going to do to protect you. So you have to find ways to protect yourself is what the advice that I would give.
You have to protect.
Yourself because like you, so I was on Bravo and I was lost at sea for like twenty one to twenty four hours with thank God it and bring my baby with me in Nantucket to block on. It sounded like a crazy story. It sounded like a made for reality TV story. The entire crew was not shooting anymore. They it was crazy and everyone was saying it was a made up story. It was a fake story, and
no one corrected it at Bravo. Like I went on with Matt Lower in the morning and like had to sort of try to defend myself like you on Good Morning America. But it really was like for not and who cares now, But it felt like a thing that I had to go defend when it really happened, And it would have been great if they were just like, this is preposterous. It absolutely happened. They were like, we don't get in the position of defending people or commenting on stories.
I'm like, you gotta comment it happened.
Well, that's the thing, and you're right. They're like, oh, we don't comment because you go back to something you said earlier in the show. They play scared, they live scared. They are you know, the executives and many companies and networks are just the same. They try to get through the day without making a decision and if they do have to make a decision, and don't be culpable for that decision. And so they with me, they were trying
to just see which way the wind blows. Yeah, and when you're in it, when you're the human being that's in it, that's great. Because Disney's not going anywhere, ABC's not going anywhere, but I will.
You're replaceable.
Yeah, And so if you try to be loyal to these people and you try to play the game, because I'm an unbelievably loyal person to a fault, and I tried to just please everybody and apologize and keep doing what they were asking. Well, if they're not going to do their part, and step up. That leaves you in the lurch, and that leaves you in a very dangerous position. So to your point, you're exactly right. My advice would
be do what's best for you. And that's not always what the business that you work for is going to tell you, and it's not always what your boss is going to tell you, because they're going to do what's right for them.
But I would say if you're a person who's trying to do the right thing and loyal and pleasing and been in this business for this many years, it probably was something ultimately to have happened to you. Because you're in a new life now, you're you're engaged, it's a second chapter. You have your kids. It's different at our age you wonder what the purpose of everything is? What is my purpose? What am I doing? Like it just comes up at this age it's weird, like what does this soul mean?
You experienced? You know, like this is the age for that.
It's like a weird midlife crisis adjacent So you needed something to fucking shake up the snow globe.
I think, oh my god, I use that same analogy all the time. And it needed there needed to be some sort of catastrophic event to rip that band aid off or else. I was just going to you know, I was on the Titanic and I was just gonna like I was the guy playing the violin on the Titanic, and I was just going to go down and the water's coming up above me, and I'm like, how lovely is this?
Yes, nothing's happened. Something has to happen, something has.
To happen to rip that apart. And it did, and it it was a it's terrible to say this because I went through it and it was horrific, but it was a beautiful event in my life that I will actually be grateful for when it's all said and done. It's probably the reason why I'm I'm getting married. It's probably the reason why my relationship with my kids is ten times better than it ever was, my relationship with my friends. I am at peace, I'm at ease. I'm
a better person. And that's not to take a dig at all on the show that I worked for for twenty years. Again, I will be the first to say I am grateful it changed my life, oh ye. But at the same time, that specific moment, that total shift in my life was beautiful and I will always be grateful for that too.
No, that was the iceberg to use your now, that was the iceberg and you had to either sink or swim, And I think, yeah, something has to happen for something to happen a lot in our lives at our at the stage of our lives that we're in. You get some stage and you're like, what, some's got to go down?
Like, well, I always try to. I always try to challenge myself, and I think you're the same way because I've seen so many of your businesses and how successful you are, and I always would like, why did you write a book? It's like, well, I wrote a book because I'd never written one. I had to be scared. And why did you do a podcast? I don't know, I'd never tried it before, and so I try. That's what sports always was for me, and maybe horse racing tiny bit was for you. Is being scared that. I
love the fear of failure. I love the ability to fail. Even when I was going through what I went through, I never worried about myself. I knew I was going to be fine because I'm always going to be fine. I will make something happen in my life. I don't care if I'm waiting tables or I'm a bartender, I'm a real estate agent. I'm going to go do something and I'm like you, I will be the best at it, or I will try to be the best at it.
So I was never scared about me. It's just that drive and that ability to fail to me is exciting.
Yeah, I agree, you're on the edge.
If you loved this episode with Chris Harrison, don't worry. There's more. Head over to his podcast, The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever to check out the rest of our conversation. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.