Less than a week after former Bachelor contestant, Bachelorette lead, and temporary Bachelorette co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe discussed her fractured friendship with ex-franchise host Chris Harrison on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, the two made ammends on Harrison’s own podcast, The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever.
As members of Bachelor Nation know, Harrison exited the Bachelor franchise in 2021 after receiving backlash for defending historical racism to the first Black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay. After Harrison’s departure, Bristowe and fellow alum Tayshia Adams were hired to co-host a season of The Bachelorette. And during Bristowe’s interview with Not Skinny But Not Fat‘s Amanda Hirsch, she essentially said that Harrison ghosted her after she got the gig.
“…All these articles started coming out saying Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams replacing Chris Harrison. So I messaged Chris, probably 10 times without him responding,” Bristowe told Hirsch. “I just wanted him to know I thought he was irreplaceable and didn’t want to step on any toes. What I said was, ‘You’re irreplaceable. I don’t know what my role is. They said I was a mentor, but now I’m seeing articles about how I’m replacing you and that makes me feel icky…And then he didn’t write back…I was like okay, he hates me. We were best friends and now he hates me.”
Rather than respond to the comments alone, Harrison invited Bristowe on his newly launched podcast to talk things over the course of two episodes, titled “Unghosted With Kaitlyn Bristowe.” He kicked things off by asking Bristowe what she was hoping to express in the Not Skinny But Not Fat interview, and she explained that she hates headlines because “they never tell the full story.”
“What I was saying in it was not that you ghosted me. I was just saying that you and I were so close, and when everything went down and I got this — whatever you want to call it — role…because they didn’t want to pay me what they pay you to host, that I was like, ‘Oh my god, I need to talk to Chris,'” she explained. “All these headlines, again, are saying Kaitlin and Tayshia taking over Chris’ job…And obviously I was not thinking about what you could be going through. I’m only thinking about myself, going, ‘He’s not texting me back. He must hate me. He’s not saying anything to me. Obviously I did something wrong.’ And I just went into a little self pity party and decided to put the blame on you for a minute. But what I was saying in that interview was it wasn’t about me. You were going through so much at that time, and you probably didn’t even know what you wanted to say to me or how to say it.”
Harrison said he wanted to have Bristowe on his podcast because he knows a lot can get lost in headline and print. He went so far as to give listeners additional context on the texts.
“I’ll back up and let everybody in on how this went down back in the day. So you were on Entertainment Tonight, and I knew that, and so I called you that morning and we talked a little bit…and then subsequently, you and Taysia were named mentor,” he explained. “You texted me after you got the mentorship — and, by the way [Kaitlyn] says 10 texts, seven of them were just that day. I’m not gonna read them to you, but it was one of those things where she missed a word and was like, ‘Wait, I meant this.’ So it wasn’t like you were hammering me with text messages [like] ‘Call me. Call me. Call me.’ It was really this one strain of thoughts that came out on one day, and then a week later or so I think you said, ‘Hey if you get a chance call me.’ So there wasn’t a ghosting.”
Both Harrison and Bristowe acknowledged that she never used the word “ghosted” during the Not Skinny But Not Fat interview. However, “ghosting” is defined as “the act or practice of abruptly cutting off all contact with someone usually without explanation by no longer accepting or responding to phone calls, instant messages, etc,” so while Harrison had his reasons for not responding, it must be said that his behavior certainly fits the ghosting description. Just admit it, sir!
“As far as the ghosting thing goes, that wasn’t the case at all. And it had nothing — I mean nothing— to do with you and Tayshia hosting the show,” Harrison told Bristowe. “It had to do with the fact that I was going through something extraordinary…And at that time I needed people in my life, and I circled the wagons with people that could be unconditionally loving and caring. And you weren’t equipped to do that because of where you were in all this.”
The two further unpacked how Harrison’s lack of response drove a wedge in their friendship, and Harrison admitted that part of the reason he didn’t respond is because he “just wasn’t worried at all about who was hosting and who was the next mentor and what the show was going to do.”
“I get that. I was thinking of you as Chris Harrison, the host of the Bachelor franchise, and I was thinking about our friendship. But I wasn’t thinking about you as a human being and what you might have been going through at that time,” Bristowe said.
“If I was younger and I saw those clickbait headlines, I would have been like ‘Kaitlyn’s dead to me’ or ‘screw her’ or whatever. And instead I saw it — and correct me if I’m wrong — not as a cry for help, but as a cry for a lost friendship and something she has realized that she lost in her life that’s changed,” Harrison explained. “So she wasn’t trying to shade me.”
“I’m glad that’s how you took it because I have genuinely, since that moment of not getting texts back, been like grieving our friendship,” Bristowe said.
You can listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of the conversation to hear the two chatted more about their interaction at Wells Adams and Sarah Hyland’s wedding, Bristowe and Adams’ experiences hosting the show, and more.