Chris Harrison has hired a high-powered Los Angeles attorney in the wake of his "The Bachelor" scandal.
It's not known what, if any, legal action he's looking into.
"Chris has had a spotless record for 20 years … He has always been the good company man, but, after the way he's been treated by producers and executives over the past couple of weeks, he's run out of cheeks to turn," a source told Page Six. "Now he's ready to tell the truth about how things really work over there — and he has plenty of evidence to back him up."
Bryan Freedman, the attorney that Chris hired, is the same lawyer who represented Gabrielle Union in her dispute with "America's Got Talent."
TMZ surmised that the hiring of a lawyer is a sign that Chris is worried he might be permanently off the show. It also sends a signal that the embattled host won't go down without a fight.
Chris announced on Feb. 13 that he was "stepping aside" from "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" "for a period of time." The announcement came a few days after he apologized for defending eventual winner Rachael Kirkconnell, who had been feeling backlash for past social media activity, which showed her attending an Antebellum South-themed party. She also "liked" other images that contained a Confederate flag, and she posted Qanon conspiracy theories online.
In the lead up to his hiatus, Chris did an interview with Rachel Lindsay, the first Black lead of "The Bachelorette." In that chat for Extra TV, he said fans should give Rachael "a little grace, a little understanding." He later apologized. "By excusing historical racism, I defended it," he said. "I invoked the term 'woke police,' which is unacceptable. I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was wrong."
On the After The Final Rose special last week, which aired after Matt James picked Rachael, he acknowledged that he and Rachael were no longer together and said her past racist acts were the reason.
"It's heartbreaking," he said. "If you don't understand that something like that is problematic in 2018, there's a lot of me that you won't understand. It's as simple as that."
Earlier in the week, Matt, the first Black lead of "The Bachelor," was asked about Chris on Bill Simmons' podcast.
"I don't think that anybody should be trying to cancel him," he said of Chris, who's hosted all 25 seasons of "The Bachelor," as well as all 16 seasons of "The Bachelorette." "We should be calling him in to do that work that he outlined and wants to do. He's taking a step back and committed to doing that. I look forward to seeing him doing that."