‘The Bachelorette’: Was that Chris Soules segment staged?

Everyone loves conspiracy theories, right? Well, “The Bachelorette” introduced another one to us during their “The Men Tell All” special on Monday night when, almost out of nowhere, a woman in the audience decided to be so bold as to try to flirt with Chris Soules during the middle of a conversation. She ended up chatting with him during commercial break, and that was it.

From one standpoint, the cynical response to all this is that this was some production plant in there to make Chris more endearing than ever, and therefore a good candidate to be “The Bachelor.” If it was some sort of staged event, Chris apparently wasn’t a part of it. Speaking to TV Guide after the show, he admitted that he was not prepared for this at all:

“I was sitting there and talking to Chris and kept hearing, ‘Chris!’ I thought, I’ll wait for Chris Harrison to acknowledge this because I don’t know what’s going on and I need to focus on what I’m saying, so finally he stopped it and [acknowledged it] and she came down. I was totally caught off guard.”

Just for the sake of the argument, we’ll give production the benefit of the doubt and say that this is real. If this is the case, the right thing to do is to make her a contestant on the next season and see where the relationship goes. We could theoretically see Chris backing off of the gig if he falls deeply in love with someone, but it is going to be very hard to turn down the fame and the platform that being “The Bachelor” provides. He hasn’t been confirmed yet to be the guy, but basically he has to sign on the dotted line and it’s his.

If you missed it from last night, click here to read our full review from this “Men Tell All.” We’ll have a full podcast up soon, and you can also sign up to get some further updates on everything we cover via our newsletter.

Photo: ABC