Chris Harrison on Bachelor's Shocking Scandal: "It Was a Barn Storm"

Oh, you clever ABC promo peeps. Despite making it sound like there will be some sort of torrid lesbian affair within the Bachelor house on the new season, that's just not it at all!

In the promo above for tonight's premiere, we are promised a "shocking scandal," with the following tease: "She's been having this sexual affair with somebody else in the Bachelor house."

Weird, right? Who knew these girls were open to sexual encounters while on this show? Ahem.

Multiple sources confirm to me precisely what this so-called "scandal" is, and host Chris Harrison is giving juicy details on it, too...

According to well-placed insiders, the rumors are true that one of the women has an affair with a behind-the-scenes crewmember for the series, which leads to serious consequences for both of the guilty parties.

Commingling between onscreen and offscreen players is a huge no-no in the world of reality TV. (Though it has happened twice on MTV's Real World, and I still choke up thinking of David defending his love for casting director Kira in the Seattle season! Sigh.)

Meanwhile, Bachelor rose-counter Chris Harrison just did a radio interview with  Valentine on 104.3 MY FM and called the rule-breaking affair "a barn storm. It was a fire."

"It was incredibly unfortunate," Harrison explains. "Horrible decisions were made. This is something that we took very serious, and it's something that we couldn't just sit by...because of things in the past. This was embarrassing for us, for Jake, and for the other women, so we were like, let's nip this in the bud, take care of it, and that's what we did."

Harrison says the "scandal" was uncomfortable for everyone involved. "I'm in the control room, and before I had to go talk to the girl, Jake and then the women, I had lawyers, psychologists, producers, executives telling me, 'These are the words you can say.' It was intense. It was a wild night, and I knew nothing until I got there."

We also talked to the new Bachelor himself, Jake Pavelka, after he met all the girls who are in tonight's episode. What did he really think? Who stands the best chance? What surprised him most? Come back to Watch With Kristin later to discuss tonight's premiere and to hear from Jake himself.

Is tonight's "shocking scandal" on The Bachelor really all that shocking? Should the producers have left the affair to continue? Comment below...

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