Thinking about applying to be the next Bachelor? Better make sure you have a six-pack first. Longtime Bachelor/Bachelorette host Chris Harrison says there's a reason the show has never featured — and never will feature — an overweight leading man. Asked in an interview with the New York Times Magazine whether he had ever considered a "less hunky" Bachelor, "like maybe a chubby guy," the reality star was brutally honest.
"No. You know why? Because that's not attractive, and television is a very visual medium, and I know that sounds horrible to say, but I know that at 42, in the eyes of television, I'm old and unattractive," Harrison explained. "Sure, I can put a suit and tie on, but I have hair on my chest and I don't have a 12-pack. I live a healthy life, but I don't do eight hours in the gym, nor do I want to. And I don't eat 50,000 egg whites," he quipped.
Harrison also said he wasn't sure having a gay Bachelor would be a good idea for the ABC series — a point of view shared by current Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis, though for a different reason. (Galavis said a gay Bachelor wouldn't be "a good example" for kids because, in his words, gay people are "more 'pervert.'")
"The question is: Is it a good business decision?" Harrison said in his interview with the Times. "I just spoke at U.S.C. the other night, and I explained it like this: Look, if you've been making pizzas for 12 years and you've made millions of dollars and everybody loves your pizzas and someone comes and says, 'Hey, you should make hamburgers.' Why? I have a great business model," he reasoned, "and I don't know if hamburgers are going to sell."
As for the argument that other types of people should be represented on the show? "That, to me, is a different topic," he said, noting that, on a "philosophical level," he's "100 percent" for marriage equality. "Is our job to break barriers, or is it a business? That's not for me to answer."
One thing he would say is that he wouldn't be a good Bachelor, in part because he's "seen how the sausage has been made for 12 years now." His ex-wife, on the other hand, would be a great Bachelorette.
"That would be amazing. She's beautiful," Harrison said of his former spouse, Gwen. "I think she would love that. I would not only host that, I'd produce it."
