Chris Harrison Defends Ben Higgins For Telling Two Women He’s In Love With Them On ‘The Bachelor’
Chris Harrison has seen it all on The Bachelor, but now the longtime TV host is admitting that even he was surprised by the fact that current star Ben Higgins actually told two women that he’s he in love with them. According to People, Harrison said in a press call that Higgins is not an actor and that he uttered those three little words to two women because he really meant them at the time. Chris said Ben’s double dose of “I love yous” took producers of the ABC reality show by surprise, and they had to pull him aside later to talk to him about it.
“I was a little bit shocked that he really did get there with two women. It’s not something you can script. It just doesn’t work like that and he’s just not that good of an actor. It really just was something that happened and it took us all a little bit by surprise.”
Chris Harrison said that Higgins was a master at compartmentalizing his relationships with the final three women, Caila, JoJo, and Lauren B. Harrison even said the 26-year-old software salesman may have done “too good of a job” because he wasn’t even aware that he had dropped the “L” word to two different girls.
“He just got to the point where he felt that emotion with two women. It was definitely a caught-on-camera, impromptu feeling and emotion.”
Harrison admitted that if The Bachelor star had asked him his opinion, he would have advised him not to go there. Chris also teased an emotional finale to the 20th season of the hit dating series. Chris Harrison even says Ben channels a past star on the season finale.
“You’ve seen how emotional Ben gets – he does pull at least a 3/4 Mesnick. He really narrowed it down to two women that he loves and he knows that he’s going to hurt somebody and he knows that he’s going to lose somebody he loves.”
Chris Harrison is referring to past Bachelor star Jason Mesnick’s gut-wrenching decision between his final two ladies, Melissa Rycroft and Molly Malaney, on his season finale, when he had broke down in tears while standing atop a balcony. Chris says that Higgins’ choice to let go of one of the women that he has fallen in love with will be must-see TV. The finale airs March 14.
Chris Harrison’s comments about Ben’s love triangle come just days after former franchise star Ali Fedotowsky revealed that no one really falls in love while they’re on The Bachelor. In a post on her AliLuvs blog, the former Bachelorette star warned the remaining contestants to be cautious about saying something they can’t possibly mean.
In her post, Fedotowsky noted that this season’s ladies have been having a hard time spitting those three little words out—and for good reason.
“The reason these girls can’t tell him ‘I love you’ is because they aren’t really in love yet. Can I be 100 percent certain they aren’t…? Well no, of course not. I can say that EVERY person I’ve ever talked to on the show has told me that they weren’t really in love on the show, they just thought they were in the moment. They were in lust! Heck, even the married couples from the show say that.”
The ex-Bachelorette said most of the successful couples from the franchise say the actually fell in love with each other after the show wrapped. And for those that “think” they are, they’ll later admit they never were. But while Ali’s comments make it seem like she’s dissing the show, she does agree with Chris Harrison that the cast members are just expressing what they feel at the time.
“After the show is over they will even say they loved him, but ask them six months from now and the answer is always the same with every contestant – they’ll say they weren’t REALLY in love. Not yet at least. And this isn’t meant as a dig at the show. The show is amazing and the feelings they express at the time are real!”
Take a look at the video below to hear Chris Harrison talking about the couples on the long-running reality franchise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftDNpNzM2Dk
[Photo By Angela Weiss/Getty Images for iHeartMedia]
