The Bachelor premiered 20 years ago today

Indiewire

ABC launched The Bachelor franchise on March 25, 2002 with host Chris Harrison and Alex Michel as the first lead. Mike Fleiss created The Bachelor two years after his wildly successful yet disastrous Fox special Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?, which had more than 22 million viewers and resulted in a restraining order between the couple and an annulled marriage. “Mike was coming off of being a television piraya,” says former Bachelor producer Carbone told IndieWire. “He had made Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and after the show initially aired, everybody in town wanted to be in business with him. But two weeks later, once the shit started to hit the fan, nobody wanted to be in business with Mike and his agent wouldn’t return his phone call.” The Bachelor was Fleiss' way of rebooting the concept. “I’m all about studying the ratings, and that show (Multi-Millionaire) was incredible. It set the world on fire. I realize that there was an irresponsible quality to it in that we were marrying off strangers essentially,” Fleiss said. “So, I said, ‘How can I create a show that has the power of Multi-Millionaire, but do it in a more responsible, relatable romantic fashion?'” ALSO: The Bachelor reviews were not kind.