Image Credit: Craig Sjodin/ABC

Though we’ve known sweet, Southern single mom Emily Maynard would be the next Bachelorette for a week, host Chris Harrison, who officially announced it on Good Morning America this morning, assures us it was only a done deal today. The producers have long been courting Maynard, he says. “We approached her. She was reluctant, and needed a lot of time to think about it, obviously, because there’s somebody else involved in her life, Ricki, her daughter. It was a huge decision. It wasn’t our usual approach to finding the Bachelorette,” he says. “We took it very slow. We had a lot of interviews. She had a lot of reservations, a lot of them centered around her daughter and how we’ll handle that — logistically, too, is she gonna come along? All that’s being worked out. But ultimately, she, like Ben [Flajnik] and even Brad [Womack], ironically enough, knows that she can trust us. It means a lot to me, honestly, that someone like an Emily will come back. It says a lot about this franchise and what we do. Yes, we have dramas and tears, and if you saw The Bachelor last night, the show can be crazy, but at its core, it is a good thing and it works. That’s why these people come back.”

Below, Harrison, who also blogs each episode of The Bachelor for EW.com, talks about how Maynard’s season will be different and what Bentley Williams, the villain from Ashley Hebert’s Bachelorette season, would have to do if he really wanted to contend for Emily’s hand. (That is all conjecture at this point, Harrison says.) Come back on Monday, when Harrison talks about the current season of The Bachelor, and by that, we mean Courtney versus Emily.  READ FULL STORY »