Exiled Bachelor host Chris Harrison is making his own dating show for Dr. Phil

Harrison, who departed the Bachelor franchise in 2021, is getting in reality TV bed with Dr. Phil

By William Hughes  |  March 7, 2024 | 1:28am
Aux News Chris Harrison
Exiled Bachelor host Chris Harrison is making his own dating show for Dr. Phil
Left: Chris Harrison (Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images), Right: Dr. Phil McGraw (Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

It’s been nearly three years since Chris Harrison—long the face of almost every incarnation of ABC’s Bachelor franchise—was functionally booted out of the franchise over his public defense of contestant Rachael Kirkconnell, after she was revealed to have participated in an Anitbellum South-themed formal event while in college. (Among other things, that means Harrison was absent for the franchise’s recent smash ratings revival, The Golden Bachelor, which we can only imagine rankled a bit.) Now, though Harrison has returned to the airwaves—at least, those airwaves about to be owned and operated by Dr. Phil.

This is per THR, which reports that Harrison (who’s lately been living mostly in Podcast Land) has re-emerged as the just-announced host of two new shows for Phil McGraw’s new Merit Street Media broadcast network: A morning talk show with Harrison’s wife, Lauren Zima, plus a brand new reality dating show, which Harrison is also set to create. Sadly, we have no details about what kind of reality TV format Harrison will gravitate to—can you try to get people to get married in less time in order to go on TV? We’d love to find out!—or what kind of ultimately disposable flowers it’ll use as symbols of eternal fidelity.

In addition to his two main hosting duties, Harrison will also appear on Dr. Phil Primetime, which will serve as the flagship show for MSM, which is set to launch on April 2. In a press statement, Harrison doesn’t outright come out and say he’s working for McGraw largely because the Dallas location makes for a short commute, but it’s definitely in the subtext: “Call it divine intervention, karma, kismet, whatever it is, the fact that Dr. Phil created this network in my own backyard here in Dallas, it means the world to me to, not only be returning to television, but to be doing it here in a hometown crowd.”

 
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