Chris Harrison says he was unprepared for Peter Weber’s mom’s behavior on The Bachelor finale.
In a new interview on David Spade’s Lights Out , the longtime host of the rose-filled reality show spoke about Barbra Weber’s aggressive behavior toward her son and Madison Prewett, the woman he ultimately chose at the end of his rocky journey. The helicopter mom’s disappointment over her son’s final pick was so animated that it earned her a “Barb-cam” on the bottom left of viewers’ TV screens.
“I really thought we were a chair-throw away from Springer,” Harrison said of Barb’s on-camera fight with Peter and Madison during the live Bachelor finale.
While the camera zeroed in on Barb’s every eye roll and sigh, Harrison said even he wasn’t prepared for her attitude towards her son’s final lady.
“I was shocked,” Harrison said, adding he “just didn’t see that coming.”
While he knew Barb wasn’t happy about her son’s broken engagement to his original pick, Hannah Ann Sluss, Harrison told Spade he never expected her to steamroll Peter and Madison on live TV.
“I didn’t think she was just going to roll right over Peter like that,” The Bachelor host said. “And even when we tried to fix that and said, okay, we’re going to come back from this and she’s gonna say, ‘you know what, at the end of the day, it’s my boy,’ it just never got there. It got worse and worse.”
As Bachelor fans know, Barb Weber didn’t hold back when asked about her feelings toward Peter’s girlfriend. Not only did she call Madison “rude” and claimed the 23-year-old told her she’s not in love with Peter, but Barb said she hopes her son’s relationship with Madison fails.
Harrison also addressed the Weber family drama in a post-show interview with Entertainment Tonight . The longtime ABC host said the family is now “splintered,” and it’s especially awkward because Peter, 28, still lives with his parents.
Harrison said he was hoping Barb Weber would issue a “but” when talking about her initial bad impression of Madison, as in, “But our son has chosen her, so we’re going to give her a chance.”
Instead, the conversation went off the rails as Mama Weber made it clear she’s not giving any chances to the young woman Peter picked.
“I was sad,” Harrison said. “I was disappointed in the whole thing, to be honest. I felt terrible…. And it wasn’t anything I could fix.”
The Bachelor host said he tried to no avail to turn things around because he doesn’t want the Weber family to be hurt. He even said he thinks Peter’s mom is a “good woman” and had hoped she and Peter Sr. would have just taken one for the team regarding their feelings about Madison. But instead, Harrison had to stand by as the family’s fracture played out on his watch.
Harrison also joked that he expected Peter to ask him if he could stay at his house following his blowout with his mom on The Bachelor finale, then noted that perhaps producers put him up in a hotel to avoid an awkward morning-after situation with his parents.