A lost cause? Allison Williams is a diehard fan of the Bachelor franchise. Kelly Ripa, well, is not.
“We have gotten into this fight for years,” the Get Out star, 31, told Us Weekly exclusively at Netflix’s The Perfection screening in New York City on Tuesday, May 21. “I don’t think we’re ever going to meet minds on the subject.”
The TV host, 48, poked fun at Williams for being a Bachelor superfan on Live With Kelly and Ryan in January. “You watch The Bachelor. That doesn’t make any sense for me,” Ripa said, to which the Girls alum replied, “Yeah, I have a heartbeat and I live in America. I watch The Bachelor. It is mandatory viewing.”
Ripa expressed her disdain toward the ABC reality dating series once more earlier this month, telling viewers that it “disgusts” her. Her comments caught the attention of countless fans and celebrities, including franchise host Chris Harrison and creator Mike Fleiss. However, Williams was totally out of the loop.
“I missed that. I’m going to have to watch that,” the actress told Us on Tuesday. “I’ve been on television for the last couple of days. I’m going to have to do my research and then I’m going to have to talk to Kelly. But first, I’m going to hear her out.”
So, what exactly does Williams love about The Bachelor? “I took a lot of anthropology classes in college and it feels like the culmination about all the things I learned about early hominids,” she explained. “We’ve all led up to this point where now we can watch a group of 30 men kind of fight each other for one woman or the other way around, and it kind of feels like I could watch Our Planet and then The Bachelor and it’s a study in the same dynamics.”
After all, the A Series of Unfortunate Events star considers herself to be one of the show’s biggest fans. “I like to think I have a leadership position in Bachelor Nation,” she told Us. “I think Chris Harrison has personally told me. Yes, point of pride!”
Ripa, for her part, is completely unfazed by the drama surrounding her recent criticism. “These ‘clapbacks’ have people at ABC laughing,” a source recently told Us. “Live With Kelly and Ryan is one of the most lucrative shows on TV. [Fleiss] claiming that The Bachelor pays for Kelly’s salary is amusing, to say the least. If anything, her success in syndication and promotion of these shows pays their salaries.”
With reporting by Nicki Gostin
