This is the most traumatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison. Coming to you from well not the friendly confines of Austin, Texas. This week, I'm actually on the road. The beautiful, lovely Lauren Zema has whisked me away for a birthday retreat, little birthday gift, a little get away and here with friends and surrounded by the ones I love and it's been an amazing week fifty two. Celebrating fifty two this week. Not a big person that worries about age, are you?
You know?
I know people that are that hate celebrating birthdays, that worry about getting older. I feel like every trip around the sun is something to be celebrated, something to be grateful for. It is something that I have earned getting to fifty two.
So I'm proud of it.
Have no problem because I am also having one of the best times of my life and loving my life right now, so that always helps as well. But yeah, so celebrating the big five to two with a bunch of friends and it has been a wonderful week. We'll have to get back to the motherland of Austin, Texas soon, but until then we will enjoy tequila or two and
some great red wine and some laughs. When we started doing the playbook episodes, we immediately got some calls and some you know, direct messages on social media about things we should talk about. And by the way, continue to drop your comments, send us those messages on at the most dramatic pod ever our Instagram handle. Let us know things you would like us to talk about. I say us either myself, I can get an interview or obviously
LZ will join me from time to time. But the first thing that came up, and we heard this quite a bit and it was kind of interesting, was to talk about the infamous fence jump, the Colton Underwood fence jump during his season of the Bachelor. And as funny, as I turned fifty two, I think back on you know, that was a big part of my life, my adult life. I started hosting when I was thirty is when the show began, and did it for about twenty years. So
it took me to about when I was fifty. So crazy to think of all the memorable moments, the iconic moments that happened, but one that really resonated with you was the Colton Underwood fence jump. And it's something that I didn't really think about much at the time.
I mean, it was a wild night.
There in Portugal, and it was dramatic and it was bizarre and all those things. But I never stopped to think. Often in those moments, this will be the moment, this is the thing that's going to resonate with you. Y'all are going to be talking about this and all the tabloids and the new and this will be played over and over and it'll be you know, memes or whatever. You don't often have that perspective in the moment. Sometimes
you do, for better or for worse. But for this one, I thought there were so many other things going on in the season. I didn't know this would be known as the fence jump season, but it was. And so a couple of you you know, had mentioned on our messages, Hey, would you talk about this? And I thought, well, if we're going to talk about it, I got to call Colton. I mean, we have to have Colton Underwood on because one thing that's very interesting is I've talked about the
fence jump from my perspective a few times. I've done many interviews, but I've never talked about my perspective with Colton. I've actually never discussed the fence jump with him, and there's some questions that I have for him because there's things, honestly I don't know, because obviously I only knew it from my perspective, which wasn't much after, you know, I saw him leap the fence and take off into the Portuguese countryside. I was pretty much at a loss, literally
and figuratively. And it was a weird time too, because personally there were some crazy things going on back home. And I don't know if you guys will remember this, especially those in California.
I know you will.
There were crazy wildfires going on. The big wildfires in southern California around Los Angeles had just started, and some friends of mine had evacuated from their house and he called me. I was in Portugal in the middle of the night, and he said, Hey, my wife, kids, we got to evacuate. Can I know you're out of town. Can I please come to your house?
Absolutely?
So, one of my dear friends moved his family from kind of the northern end of the Canejo Valley in southern California to my house and it was about six hours later when he called me back and said, hey, man, is there anything you want me to grab in your house?
Because I have to leave.
So what do you mean you can stay as long as you want, don't worry about it. He says, no, no, We're being evacuated from your house. And I'm like, that's impossible. We live in the middle of you know, Westlake Village. There's this huge community. There's no way a fire's gotten there. And he says, yeah, is coming through the mountains and the hills and we're evacuating Westlake Village. And so I am and my kids and my ex wife and my kids are obviously with my ex they're there in Westlake Village.
So I immediately call them.
And now I'm freaking out because it's the middle of the night and everybody's being evacuated from their homes and this fire is rushing through the neighborhood, and so I'm kind of losing my mind and worried about my kids. Clearly, I get a hold of them, and quickly I realize they are okay, and they're they're getting evacuated, and they're they're all together and they're getting their stuff, and that's all you care about. There's things you worry about. All
I care about are they out? Are you safe? And so everybody got out safe. But I'm sitting half the world away over in Portugal and I'm dealing with Coulton stuff. So you know, seventy five percent of my brain is worried about my house, my kids, everything going on, and I'm watching my security cameras and watching the smoke come by, and it's really bizarre watching it from halfway around the world. And at the same time, I knew something was going
on with Coulton. I knew that there was this one date that was probably going to be a little had the potential to be combustible.
And this was not.
Abnormal. This happened quite a bit. I wasn't always on the dates, but sometimes producers would call me and say, hey, something might be going down tonight.
Be close.
You should be around this particular date in the allgar Of region of Portugal, which is kind of south of Lisbon.
By a few hours.
We were about an hour or so away from where we were staying, and so I had to make a concerted effort. They said you should be there. Wilson t car will come over, and so I'm all dressed up ready to go just in case, and so I often do this, whether it was Bachelor, bacherrette, or even Paradise, where I would sit around for hours on end. It's
not glamorous, it's not pretty. You're sitting in an old hotel room or a control room or a garage or closet, and you're just sitting there for hours and hours, and oftentimes nothing actually came of it. You know, what we thought was going to happen didn't, so it didn't bear fruit, and I would just spend the night, you know, watching what was going on and go home. Well, this night, obviously what we thought might happen did and then some
were we expecting all of this? No, I honestly thought when I arrived, I would maybe just have to go talk to Colton and discuss what was going on with him and make sure he was okay. That's all we really thought. When we thought it would be combustible. We didn't think Colton is going to run from the show. Our bachelor is going to bolt and go a wall and disappear into the countryside. Nobody was prepared for the jump, and we're going to talk about that with Colton Underwood
when we come back. Look, if we are going to talk about the infamous fence jump, it really involved two people, So I have to bring on the other person who was a part of the jump, the most athletic move I've probably seen in my life. Colton Underwood joining me now as we open up the playbook on the infamous fence jump in Portugal.
How you doing, man, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great.
You know, it's funny some people have been kind of direct messaging and sending us all these texts of like things they want us to talk about on our little Friday playbook, And they said, would Chris ever talk about the fence jump? And I've kind of talked about it before, but I've actually, this is weird. I've never talked about it with you.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like, during like the promos and press for my season, that was what everybody wanted to talk about. But I really, I guess at the time, couldn't say that you know what really went on behind all of it.
When I gave my perspective. And then obviously that night there was this really kind of gray area where we weren't together because you were off in the Portuguese countryside, and then obviously I can only pick the story back up when we finally found you, and so there's a lot to cover that I want to get into, and so I will pick it up from my perspective of Colton when he was upset walking towards the fence in the first place, I thought I had the tiger cornered.
I thought I had you caged. There's a gate in front of you, there's a fence to the left, There's nowhere for Colton to go. So that's why I kind of slowed down, and I'm like, I'm gonna let him have his his because he's going to turn around and we're going to talk and we're going to hash this out.
And that's when it happened. That's when. And here's what I want to know.
First, when did you decide that you were going to actually jump the fence?
What moment?
Oh, I think, like if you rewatching it, like I knew I was like dipping from the show, like midway through that date. I think like I looked around the room and like normally when you're on a date, there's a few producers standing in corners, not making eye contact, but like behind camera, Yeah, and like as it was going on, there was nobody in that room, and I was like, nobody wants to look me in the eyes right now and like see what they're doing.
So like midway through, I was like, oh, I'm piecing out of here.
And logistically I knew there were some challenges because like when you're filming a show and you're on a date, you don't carry your wallet or passport, You don't carry into any of the things you actually need to like survive on your own, right. So I knew like midway through the date as far as like getting out, I would have loved if there was like a pedestrian gate to the right of the actual fence, but I didn't see anything, and I wasn't about to take more time to look.
So it was sort of a spur of the moment thing when I got to the gate.
And guys, I went back the day after to try and recreate it because I'm like, was it as athletic as I remembered from the night before, or like, was it that big of a deal. It took me quite some time because I pulled the footage. Once you leapt into the air, you had one hand on the fence. Your foot did not touch the fence or the top.
That was the most athletic part of that is that you went from the ground on one side over about a seven foot fence to the other's facide and I'm like, he never touched the fence.
You got some ops, man, Yeah, I mean.
Looking back, it is one of my more athletic things I think I've ever done in my entire for including sports, just because of the fact that, like I normally don't wear boots and jeans.
I'm a very casual person when it comes to like what I wear out. So the fact I did it.
In like a trench coat slash jacket, I think I was wearing maybe in jeans and boots. I was like, that just adds to adds to the complex date.
And that's so it was genuine awe and shock. And I don't know, I don't know if you still heard this or you were gone by the time I said it, but you as soon as you jumped, that's when I uttered the famous you just jumped the fucking fence.
Yeah, I don't I don't know if I heard that first.
I was a little in the zone at the time, but okay, So here's my perspective, and then I want to hear what happened. The reason that I didn't care that much that he jumped the fence. When I came to work that day, there was a there was a car and two security guards standing outside. And not like security security, they're just like part of whoever our hired crew was in Portugal. We're in the Portuguese We're in the aligarf region. We are deep into the Portuguese countryside,
in a very small town. And so you jumped the fence, and I'm like, well, there's two security guards right there. They'll keep an eye on him. And he just wants to blow off some steam, not a big deal. So I'm looking at because I'm not going over the fence. I'm looking at how to open this automatic fence. I do, and I walk through the fence into utter and complete darkness, and Colton is gone. So please pick it up from your feet land on the ground.
Where did you go? What happened?
Well, I was under the same impression as you.
I was fully expecting to land on like a crafty table like I thought, like I thought food was going to be flying everywhere, and I was going to land right into a producer's lap and I got over and I like looked around.
I was like, oh, this has to be a joke, like nobody's here.
And it worked, and I was like, all right, well, I'm going to just walk towards the light and like try to get to a city in some population, because we truly were in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, and it's two and probably two two thirty in the morning by this point.
Yeah, it was.
It was definitely early morning at the time, and I just sort of headed towards the lights, and I I didn't realize until probably halfway through that walk how far those lights were actually away from me.
As I'm like cutting.
Through people's backyards and hearing wild animals and also like hiding from the production vans that are like trying to chase me.
It just it, Yeah, it became it became a chase.
Did you actually walk or did you jog or run what like? Because I I don't know, I'm trying to think back. It probably only took me about sixty seconds, maybe ninety seconds tops to get through that fence to open it up and get through with the crew, and there was nothing.
You were gone.
Yeah, I mean I definitely ran right after my feet hit the hit the fence after the fence jumped, but I slowed down. I'm not an endurance acute by any myself.
I ran with you that that season, you are an endurance athlete, please your professional So I.
Was like, I got to pace myself. These lights are really far away. I'm going to keep heading in this direction.
But it's funny.
So I got out and it was complete darkness, and what I thought there was a dog barking down the street to the right, and I thought, okay, he just went by someone's yard and there's a dog barking. I'm gonna walk down there. So I kind of start walking and jogging down this street to chase you down, and I realize it's a dead end and you must have gone the other direction. So now I've wasted even more time. You were just gone.
Well you want to know, I think, because you know how like when things like that happen, you sort of block out and you're like, I don't know if I'm remembering this point right.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's their direction.
I started in where I ran to and I was like, oh, this is and I have to run the other way back in front of the fence that I just jumped, so I have to make up time. I'm pretty sure that's what happened, because I do know I went in two different directions.
That one that makes sense, by the way, that was that was like a leam Neeson move then, because you caused that dog to bark and then ran the other direction.
You guys went that way as I'm going this way.
Yeah, you threw me off without even knowing it. That well done.
Yeah, well it was not intentional by any means, but it works.
So I start, you know it, ron it.
Oh gosh, twenty minutes go by and we can't find Colton and we're legitimately all now spreading out like okay, let's not worry about the show. Although they kept a camera on me, and I start calling people in LA and it's in the you know, the middle of the night, and I'm like, hey, uh, this is a weird one. But we've lost the Bachelor, like I lost a human being in the Portuguese countryside.
So where did you go and what were you doing during all this?
I mean I was doing everything I could just not to be found at the time.
I just like you know.
I think I said this in some of like the interviews, is you don't get you don't get much time to like process or be by yourself at all, and sometimes like that you know that's what you need. So I think I was just trying to be alone. I was in ditches, I was in people's backyards. I was next to a dog at one point, Like it was, it was truly wild. Like looking back, I probably would not have stayed out there as long as I did, knowing what wild animals exist in the nature.
But I just needed alone.
Time knowing you as well as I do now and knowing where your life is. Now do you look back, You're like, how is that my life? At any point? How is how was I running through the Portuguese country side trying to, you know, evade producers.
I mean, honestly, it just makes more sense to me now.
It's like only like only a gay man can be that dramatic on a show. So I mean, to be honest with you, I mean I had a lot of obvious a lot.
Of stuff that I was processing internally as.
The show was going on, clearly.
But yet like in the micro moments of like okay, now this is the only one that I sort of wanted while I was trying to like figure out my sexuality and it's not happening, and then this is all like on top of it, these people don't understand what I'm going through.
I didn't want to let them in.
So it was it was a tough you know, it was tough, and like even I don't know if you remember this, but like I think I was. I was one of maybe the only contestants that read my agreement from like front to back, probably so I knew. I think I like knew or remembered reading in there as like when you ask for the therapist, the cameras have to like legally be like taken down, like they have
to stop recording. So I remember, like you were like calling at me, and I would like I think I we went back and forth with like two or three lines, and then like my third line was just like I need to talk to doctor who a therapist was at the time, And I said, the next person I talked to needs to be a therapist, and like that's when like I remember the.
Cameras because so but I want to back up about five minutes before I we found you, you were in a ditch.
Correct.
Is this true that you were in a ditch and you kind of got scared out of that ditch by an animal.
Yeah.
I mean at that point I just was like, okay, like this needs to end, because something's going to pop out or bite me or do something to me that I'm going.
To need help with.
And just so we can kind of explain to people. So we're in the Portuguese countryside and they don't have underwater sewers and where rain runs and all that. On each side of the road, there was essentially these drainage ditches that were kind of bricked in and they were probably like four feet deep, so you could, I mean, you could scoot down and want to never be seen. And that's where you were when we were driving down the road. But you shot out of it, like you know, out of a cannon.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know what exactly it was that scared me out of there.
I think it was just a culmination of the entire evening because it went on for a while. I don't once again you sort of black out them.
I would say it was a good forty five to fifty minutes that all this took place.
Yeah, so you don't have like an exact time, Like I was like, I don't know how long I've been running here.
All I know is like, it's early in the morning. I'm tired. This is useless at this point because this city's hours away. Yeah. So yeah, I popped out and I was like, I'm I need help. I got to get out of here.
You know, when I found you, obviously, as we laugh, now, you were not happy. I was not happy.
By the way.
It was cold, I'm running around in my dress shoes, and I think I said something to the effect of, like, where.
The hell are you going. You don't have a wallet, you don't.
Have a passport, Just get in the car.
Man.
Yeah, well, here's my question. I've never asked you this.
Why were you on that day because normally you don't go to every single one on one.
Because I had I had heard the same thing that it may be an explosive date because I didn't go on every day, right yeah, yeah, And they said, look, you probably want to show up tonight just in case. Like and by the way, it's not that I wouldn't
ever do that. I did that quite a bit, but probably forty percent of the time and ninety nine percent of the time nothing would ever come of it, and I would just sit in a hotel room or sit in the control room till five in the morning and be dressed and ready to go and absolutely do nothing. And I thought that's what was going to happen that night.
I was in there and I was honestly eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the producers, and I just figured it was going to be a wasted night and I would go back home, and that's when everything happened, and I'm like, well, let me go talk to them.
You would have been better off stretching and putting some athletic shoes on my friend.
I know, dude, I ran next to you. It wouldn't have helped. It didn't matter. I could have been in my PA Flyers, my air Jordan, So I was not catching you that night.
It didn't matter.
It would have been more embarrassing if we had been trying, if I had really been trying to chase you on camera, and that would have been how embarrassingly quick you would have gotten away from me.
Yeah, I mean I wish, I wish I would have been in a different mindset because I could have had a little bit more fun with that, Like that week, I just remember sort of those feelings lingered or I wish we would have been able to, like, you know, ride away, gone back and poke fun at it, but it was it wasn't intense.
Charged as much as we laugh about it now, You're right, it was a very intense moment.
But it's funny.
I look back, and you never know what's going to be the thing when you're shooting a show or a season of The Bachelor Bacherette. Even when that happened, I don't know. I guess I was naive. I didn't think this will be the season known as the fence Jump, and this will go down in Bachelor history as one of the most iconic moments in television, you know, reality television history.
Did you can you believe that?
When did you kind of start feeling that?
Oh? During like press and promo, I same thing.
Even when we wrapped the season, I was just like, okay, I mean I just did things differently and.
Went about it different.
I didn't think that moment was going to be like I mean, looking back, it was sort of the pivotal moment where everything changed. But at the same time. I didn't think that was going to be in every single trailer, in every single tease, but it wasn't.
I think it was successful for the promotion of the show too.
Yeah, I appreciate it. You put my kids through college.
There you go. I'm glad somebody got got compensated.
For it before I let you go.
First of all, I appreciate you, you know, diving back into Amni Julane with me and going over this fence shop.
How's life for you? You good? Everybody happy?
Really good?
Yeah, married life is great. I'm just in like a much different place in life. My relationship dynamic is different and way healthier than I ever thought it was going to be. I'm just sort of at peace, have a good support system out here in LA and life is peaceful and really good right now.
Well, we raved about your wedding on our podcast. We raved about your husband, who I don't know how you ended up with such a great guy.
He is unbelievable.
He's the best. He's the best.
And yeah, we we listened to that podcast and we both he doesn't do any media stuff with me, but we both want to say thank you. But because you sort of gave us like the perfect recap that now we can go back and hit play. You and Lauren started to give us the play by play and like the behind the scenes look that we because when you're in it just really focused.
On what you got to do. But it was really beautiful and it was really cool for you guys to do that.
So thank you a mental lot and we were sort of smiling you to hear as we listened back on the weekend.
Well, it was all out of love and Lauren and I, as our wedding approaches, we are definitely reaching out to your coach because he was the hit of the wedding. I'm telling you this guy. Hire him for every wedding in the world.
He is I was going to ask for your better hohold was is she there celebrating somewhere with you?
She actually is here. She's here, and she told me to send her love and say.
Hello to you.
Well send mine back to her.
Hey, Colton Underwood, I appreciate it, my friend and spending a little time opening up the playbook with us this week.
Thank you, Thank you, thanks for listening.
Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever, and make sure to write US a review and leave US five stars. I'll talk to you next time.