Colton Underwood Might Not Be Ready To Be ‘The Bachelor,’ Admits Host Chris Harrison

The Bachelor is set to start filming any day now, but even the show’s host is casting doubt on the ability of the new season’s leading man’s to find everlasting love. In an interview with ABC News, longtime Bachelor host Chris Harrison admitted that 26-year old former NFL player Colton Underwood may not be ready to find a wife on the ABC dating show.

“I don’t know if he’s ready and I think that’s one of the great and interesting things about him that will make him a good Bachelor. He says he’s ready, he thinks he’s ready, but is he? I don’t know that.”

Harrison revealed that as a host and producer of the long-running ABC franchise, one of his jobs will be to “push” Underwood. But he also said Underwood’s many “layers” (he’s a virgin, in case you missed the memo) will make his journey to find love an interesting one.

“Maybe he’s more ready than any of us know and he gets engaged, we just don’t know.”

Harrison also put the kibosh on any chance of Colton’s ex, Tia Booth, showing up to try to win his heart on The Bachelor. Viewers were frustrated by the Colton-Tia storyline, which played out on both Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette and on the recently wrapped Bachelor in Paradise.

“Everyone can relax. I think she wanted something that wasn’t there, there wasn’t the chemistry, they just didn’t have that thing,” Harrison said.

Tia Booth recently told Entertainment Tonight she doesn’t think Underwood is in the right place in his life to be The Bachelor.

“I don’t know that he’s ready. I don’t,” Booth told ET just ahead of Colton’s casting as The Bachelor.

Chris Harrison’s new comments about Colton Underwood come on the heels of his surprising interview last week with People in which he admitted Bachelor producers caught “some heat” for picking Underwood to headline the new season of the show over Bachelorette runner-ups Blake Horstmann and Jason Tartick.

Harrison even admitted that the show is about entertainment and producers feel Colton Underwood will give “the best TV,” adding that while he hopes Underwood’s Bachelor season will be successful, “it could be a complete and utter disaster, which case, it’ll still be phenomenal TV.”

Many viewers of the franchise noted that Chris Harrison has never talked in such a way ahead of past Bachelor or Bachelorette seasons.

As for Underwood, he says he’s ready. After his Bachelor cast reveal, the three-time ABC star announced on Good Morning America that he is ready to find a wife.

The Bachelor Season 23 will premiere in January 2019 on ABC.