‘The Bachelor’ Host Chris Harrison:

No Fan of VH1’s ‘Blatant Ripoff,’ ‘Flavor of Love’

There’s scant love lost between The Bachelor host Chris Harrison and those producers who abandoned his hit reality series - only to create Flavor of Love at a competing network.

Interviewed on Buzzworthy Radio, Chris says the defections of certain staffers from ABC’s Bachelor, which debuted in 2002, over to VH1’s original Love show, which bowed in 2006, was the source of significant strife.

"There were so many ripoffs that the whole genre was watered down," Chris (above) tells us of VH1 and other net's foray into "Bachelor" territory.

“VH1 has sort of copied [The Bachelor] format with Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, all the Loves,” says host Matthew Preston. “What do you think of all the other kind of copy shows out there?”

“Not kind of copied us,” Chris snaps back. “It was one of our former producers - and a lot of people who worked on our show, actually - who went over and did that show.

“Here’s a little-known story: If you look at the executive producer of those shows, they actually worked for The Bachelor for years.

“So it was a little contentious for a while. It was a blatant, silly rip-off. And early on, it bothered me. Because it kind of took away from our audience.

“For a while, The Bachelor was the only show where you could see this type of concept unfold. Then for a while, NBC had one - Married by America, or whatever it was called. Then Joe Millionaire, which was a silly spoof on Fox.

“And then it made it harder for us to cast the show. It made us kind of push the envelope a little and kind of change our show, unfortunately. So that was kind of a pain.”

Chris also reveals that The Bachelor’s trademark flower isn’t his personal No. 1 pick:

“I have to say, roses have been pretty good to me over the last eight years. So you don’t want to bite the flower that feeds you.

“But I will say this: When I buy flowers for my wife, it’s definitely not roses.”