Bachelor: Chris Harrison’s Erotic Book Is Blowing Minds on Twitter

It’s not a mystery that The Bachelor franchise host with the most, Chris Harrison, wrote a book. He placed it in full view behind his left shoulder as he presented every episode of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever! last year. He’s talked about it, promoted it, and Huffpost even did a whole new series, Best Worst Book, inspired by its publication back in 2015. The publication called it “the best worst book we’d ever read,” and the rest of us just kind of agreed to let Chris Harrison have his moment as a writer and not give him a hard time about the fact that the book is titled, “The Perfect Letter.” 

Before publishing his novel, Chris Harrison had squared off a nice little corner of success for himself. Having attended Oklahoma City University on a soccer scholarship, Chris began his professional career as a sports reporter for CBS affiliate KWTV in Oklahoma City. He briefly jumped to TVG Network, a horse racing channel, before finding his calling in hosting. He hosted Designer’s Challenge on HGTV and Mall Masters on GSN. He married his college sweetheart, Gwen, and eventually became the host of all things The Bachelor in 2002. He and Gwen had two children, and though they eventually divorced, Chris went on to host many other shows and TV events. Through it all, his role as our Bachelor host and TV dad stayed strong. He’s been there for each and every bachelor and bachelorette as they cried their way through their dates. He’s been there for fans when monsters like Yosef refuse to admit their misogyny. He’s been the balance, the steady keel in the ever-rocking Bachelor ship. And as our TV dad, we never wanted to hear his erotic fantasies. But he gave them to us. And when we spent five years ignoring them? He upped the ante. 

On the January 18 episode of The Bachelor, Chris announced that he was taking the reins and had planned that week’s group date. So when the girls arrived and heard Ashley I. reading, “He was positioning himself over her, raising her hips to meet his…His lips moved to her ears, to her neck. She panted, ‘Jake please don’t make me wait anymore!”? Yes, everyone was floored. No one knew what to expect. Twitter, least of all. Viewers took to Twitter and expressed their outrage over Chris Harrison’s book, the novel we all knew about, but never knew about. Twitter collectively agreed that we are not OK with this new reality.

We’re not sure how we’re going to be able to look at Chris Harrison the same anymore. Our dad wrote erotica. Will we all be given a podcast to unpack and process this new reality? In an NPR interview back in 2015, Chris said of his book, “It’s romance. It’s love. It’s a story. It’s a journey. It’s escapism.” Chris, we’re here to tell you, it’s trauma. 

Sources: Twitter, Huffpost