Chris Harrison's attorney represented the wife of The Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss when she made abuse allegations

The Daily Beast

Deadline's report that Harrison was exiting The Bachelor franchise with a "mid-range eight-figure payoff" also noted that "Harrison lawyer Bryan Freedman (was) pledging to unleash the Shiva of lawsuits exposing a swath of The Bachelor’s alleged dirty laundry unless (Harrison) emerged feeling the financial love." Variety followed up by reporting that "Harrison’s team came to the table with ammo of their own — one example is bringing up former allegations against The Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss, who was accused by his wife of domestic violence, which led to a police probe in 2019. (Fleiss and his wife have since reconciled.)" As The Daily Beast points out, it was Freedman who "represented Fleiss’ formerly estranged wife, Laura Kaeppeler Fleiss, during the couple’s divorce that year." Entertainment lawyer and Sharma Law founder Anita K. Sharma tells The Daily Beast: “Just hiring Freedman was a huge shot across the bow from Harrison from the outset, and shows the level of contentiousness involved." While Kaeppler's information would remain confidential under attorney-client privilege, Sharma says that anything that came from third parties about Fleiss would be under no such restriction. The Daily Beast's Laura Bradley points out that Harrison and Fleiss famously did not get along when they first met. “We hated each other,” Harrison told The Cut in 2015. “It was a five-minute meeting that I was told would take an hour.” Fleiss is quoted as saying Harrison "looked like a guy barfed on by an eight-week-old." (UC Berkeley-educated Fleiss is liberal and anti-Trump, while self-described "conservative Texas boy" Harrison's right-wing-tinged arguments when it comes to race is how he got into trouble in the first place with his Extra interview with Rachel Lindsay.) Fleiss and Harrison eventually did hit it off, but as Bradley notes: "It would appear, however, that their bond has now soured—and that Harrison wanted to send a message with his choice of attorney." “There’s obviously tons of very talented litigators in L.A.—especially within the entertainment business—that he could have used,” Sharma said. Choosing the one who represented Fleiss’ formerly estranged wife in a contentious divorce, Sharma adds, “was definitely a power move.”