ABC
As Bachelor spinoff Listen to Your Heart premieres Monday, April 13 on ABC, we’ve been wondering since the network announced the spinoff if this cast would give them more people to pick from for The Bachelor, The Bachelorette or Bachelor in Paradise. Here’s what host Chris Harrison and executive producer Bennett Graebner had to say.
A New Lead Could Definitely Come from Listen to Your Heart
When Heavy spoke with Harrison back in January and asked about casting the Listen to Your HEart</i contestants on other Bachelor shows, Harrison said that could “absolutely” happen — even a lead could come from the spinoff.
“If someone comes from Listen to Your Heart and just blows the world away and blows us away and they have a great story, they could be the next bachelorette, they could be the next bachelor, why not?” said Harrison. “As long as they’re sincere and looking for love and it’s a great story and it’s going to be good TV, absolutely.”
He added that while they’ve mostly gone to the formula of choosing people from the season that just aired to anchor the next series, that’s not a guarantee.
“People need to understand that although we do have a track record for pulling people from past shows, that’s not a guarantee, that’s not a done deal,” said Harrison. “Trust me, we do look at a lot of options. Whether we want to do a celebrity, whether we want to do someone from years past, maybe someone completely different that casting has stumbled upon. Everything is on the table, and I mean everything is on the table. Then we narrow it down, narrow it down, narrow it down, and finally, the proverbial gun is to our head because we have to get into production.”
Harrison also told us that they have had seasons where the producers fight like cats and dogs over who is going to be the next lead.
“It’s like a fantasy draft. We all have our favorites. I have my favorite that I’m going to fight for and Mike Fleiss, the creator, has his favorite. And we will fight. There will be screaming matches of who we think will be the best bachelor or bachelorette,” said Harrison.
But at the end of the day, the big wigs like the president of ABC, the president of Warner Horizon, and show creator Mike Fleiss are the ones who make the final decision.
“But we all put our two cents in and we fight for it,” he said.
But It’s More Likely To See Them on Bachelor in Paradise
EP Graebner told us that he sees Listen to Your Heart more like Bachelor Winter Games, where they got cast members “from all over the world” and then “some of them appeared on Bachelor in Paradise that following summer.”
“I see some of these people popping up on another show for us, yeah, I can. But let’s see how things go. I hope they all fall in love and they’re unavailable!” said Graebner with a laugh.
The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
READ NEXT: ‘The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart’ Predicted Winners