Mike Fleiss is stepping down from the creative team of the Bachelor franchise after more than 20 years.
Season 27, which just ended Monday night with the engagement of Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar, is his final season with the franchise. Claire Freeland, Jason Ehrlich, and longtime executive producer Bennett Graebner will be taking over as executive producers and showrunners for the franchise.
“First and foremost, congratulations are in order for Zach and Kaity. I wish them a long and happy life together. I want to thank WBTV and ABC for 21 extraordinary years. They’ve found the perfect creative team for me to entrust The Bachelor franchise and keep this lightening in a bottle bold and moving forward. Let the journey continue,” Fleiss said.
Fleiss created The Bachelor, which debuted in 2002 led by 31-year-old Alex Michel, a Harvard educated management consultant from Charlottesville, Virginia. He is also the creative force behind The Bachelorette, which followed a year later with 29-year-old Trista Rehn as the leading lady. He’s also been an executive producer on all of the other Bachelor franchise series including Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise and Bachelor: Winter Games.
While he’s remained associated with the franchise, Fleiss hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day operations of each series in about a decade.
Outside of The Bachelor, Fleiss has been involved in reality series including Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire and High School Reunion as well as horror films including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and the Hostel franchise.
Freeland was formerly showrunner of The Bachelor franchise in Canada, Erlich has been showrunner on several seasons of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad in the U.S. and Graebner has been a longtime exec producer on the franchise.
Freeland, who was also an executive in development and original programming at Rogers Media and Corus Entertainment, has worked on shows such as The Property Brothers and Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan.
Erlich is also the creator of E!’s The Bradshaw Bunch and Amazon’s Shatner in Space.