‘The Bachelorette’: Chris Harrison on death of Andi Dorfman contestant Eric Hill

The news of Eric Hill’s passing is probably something that you are going to be hearing about for much of the next few months. He was a contestant on Andi Dorfman’s upcoming season of “The Bachelorette” who was at some point eliminated from the competition, and then passed away today following a paragliding accident in Utah that was not affiliated with the show.

While the show’s producers typically refrain from discussing contestants until the cast is released, they understandably broke that tradition in dealing with the tragic nature of this news. So following their own statement, Chris Harrison made a comment of his own on Twitter today

“On behalf of all of us at The Bachelor our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Eric Hill. He will be missed.”

A source close to production also told E! News that the show is still trying to figure out the right way to handle what is an unprecedented situation for them. While they have had controversial contestants before, this is the first time that someone has died in between filming the show and it airing:

“This is really the first time something terrible has happened between time of filming and airing the season, so the network will have to figure out how to handle, and if it merits somehow editing the show differently.”

We do not expect production to make any decisions regarding editing Eric immediately, and the tasteful thing to do would be to try to involve his loved ones and his family in making sure that they have some lovely memories of Eric to look back on from the last few months of his life. This is a deeply tragic situation, and you also have to wonder how Andi herself is handling the news. She may not have known Eric for very long, but she is still in the process of filming the season and she did at least spend a reasonably amount of time with him.

We’ll have more on this sad situated as more comes out, but once again thoughts and well-wishes for all who knew Eric.

Photo: ABC