In the first few minutes of the season premiere, Bachelor in Paradise will address the alleged sexual encounter that led to a production halt, and that includes footage of the contestants involved.
Producers previously confirmed that the show would openly address the incident between Corinne Olympios and DeMario Jackson, because the rules of reality TV dictate that nothing is off limits, even sexual misconduct allegations.
“It’s going to be literally dealt with the moment we come on the air,” Bachelor’s Chris Harrison told Entertainment Weekly. “We’ll start talking about it right away and start dealing with it. If you don’t, it’s the elephant in the room and then it will taint the entire season. So we want to show everybody and then get on with Paradise because there are some wonderful things that are going to be happening.”
Viewers will not see footage of the actual moment, which was reviewed as part of an internal Warner Bros. investigation; a law firm concluded there was no misconduct. But the show will air scenes featuring both Olympios and Jackson that were shot prior to the encounter. Harrison tells EW:
“There’s been a lot written and assumed and said about what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do. We had already shot for three days [before the shutdown] and a lot had actually happened — a lot of people had arrived, there had been dates, we’d gotten to the point where there was about to be our first rose ceremony — so we had a week’s worth of stuff [that] we didn’t want to just throw that away because that’s what impacted the show and it’s what led to the shutdown. We thought you needed to see that. So you’re going to see a lot of it, including Corinne and DeMario on the show.”
That producers ultimately decided to use the footage they spent money on was to be expected. Harrison will of course provide context within the episode—which airs on August 14—and play the role of narrator:
“When we restart, it will be me back in Mexico walking you through what happened and then we’re going to watch what happened. And then we’ll cut back to me and I’ll kind of shed some more light on things and then we’re going to go back and you’re going to see more of what happened, [and] not just the controversial. You’re going to see a lot of things, people falling in love, a lot of dates happening.”
Although Harrison vows a tasteful approach to the show’s presentation of events, the tone of the promo doesn’t exactly instill confidence. “To the best of my knowledge,” he says, “you’re going to see more than enough to show you what was happening that led up to the shutdown, within certain taste and values of what we can show on network TV.”
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