Expect the unexpected. That’s the motto Chris Harrison has to live by when hosting The Bachelor — especially during Peter Weber‘s season. While Hannah Brown was invited to appear on night one to give back the wings Weber, 28, gave her, she wasn’t supposed to stay. In fact, the team behind the ABC series was a bit scared when that emotional one-on-one chat began.
“The conversation you’re witnessing right now was not supposed to happen. That was not ever produced or intended. It’s just something that organically happened and then it scared the hell out of all of us because the show might end,” the longtime host, 48, told Us Weekly exclusively at the Television Critics’ Association’s winter press tour on Wednesday, January 8. “Monday, people need to be warned that we’re going to pick up right where we left off. It is immediately right back into that riveting, gut-wrenching, I-probably-shouldn’t-be-watching-this-personal-moment moment.”
Harrison and other producers were aware “this could go really wrong” — or he could go home with Brown, 25, and the season would be over.
“If I was teaching a class, I would say, ‘Create a show completely and utterly unlike The Bachelor,’ because as a producer, you should know the middle, beginning and the end. And we don’t know that,” the former Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host told Us. “The show could end at any moment for us. It’s unpredictable. It’s out of our control. And that’s a terrible way to do television. It’s really dumb! But sometimes it lends itself to great TV.”
Harrison also noted that the producers were hesitant about keeping the cameras rolling when Brown and Weber began discussing their past backstage.
“While this was happening, [we were] thinking, ‘Should we be filming this? I don’t know, it’s so personal.’ But this is what makes Hannah and Peter so lovable and so likable,” he explained. “They are willing to go there and really expose themselves and obviously there are issues and things in their relationship they thought were resolved. They’re not.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
