‘The Bachelor’: What’s Matt James’ Height and How Much Taller Is He Compared to Chris Harrison?
Ever since he was cast as The Bachelor, Matt James has been breaking records. The former footballer is, of course, the first Black Bachelor that the franchise has ever had. Though Rachel Lindsay Abasolo and Tayshia Adams became the first Black leads for The Bachelorette, it’s taken a ridiculous 25 seasons for ABC to cast a Black lead in the original show. Since the executives made the decision to cast James in the height of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, many people began speculating that the franchise was merely pandering to outraged fans and trying to save themselves from further criticism.
But whatever the franchise’s reason for finally selecting a Black lead for The Bachelor, it’s worked out in their favor thus far. In fact, after selecting James as the lead, the franchise received a record number of applications of women willing to compete for a shot at love with James. While the show’s host, Chris Harrison, alluded that the increased number of applications was due to James’ character, his race likely factored into the phenomenon as well.
Season 25 of ‘The Bachelor’ received a record number of contestant applications
Of course, some of Bachelor Nation knew who James was prior to him being announced as The Bachelor. As he is best friends with fan favorite, Tyler Cameron and has also developed a friendship with former Bachelorette Hannah Brown, some fans were already familiar with him. However, there were plenty of people who had no idea who he was. Thus the increased interested applicants could have stemmed from the fact a wider variety of people were interested in dating a Black man.
What is Matt James’ height and is he the tallest lead in ‘Bachelor’ history?
But James isn’t only breaking records that have to do with race. The 29-year-old has also tied with another former Bachelor as the tallest lead in the franchise’s history. Funnily enough, James shares the record with another Matt. Hailing from Season 12, Matt Grant, who was the first British lead in the franchise, was just as tall as James and they both stand at a towering 6 feet 5 inches.
Of course, it’s been 13 years since fans of The Bachelor have witnessed such a tall lead on their screen. In fact, even Harrison seemed taken aback by James’s height. Fans also noted that James seemed to tower over the long-time host during the show’s premiere and many of them even took to Googling how tall Harrison was because of the drastic height difference between the pair.
How tall is Chris Harrison?
So just how tall is Harrison? The Texas native is of pretty average height. Standing at 5 feet 10 inches, he is seven inches shorter than James. Of course, most people would likely look short next to James even if they aren’t. Clearly, the contestant who chose to bring the stepstool had the right idea. We’d wager that some of the shorter women are going to have to be a little creative when they’re trying to plant a kiss on the seriously tall lead.
