Is Mike Fleiss’ Exit the Beginning of the End for ‘The Bachelor’?

Someone call Jesse Palmer, because we’ve got another emotional breakup to discuss. On Tuesday, The Bachelor and its creator, Mike Fleiss, parted ways after more than two decades of (mostly) happy matrimony. Fleiss gave no reason for his exit, but the timing of the announcement—which comes one day after a disastrous finale of an especially boring Bachelor season—does the show’s narrative no favors.

But what will become of this compulsively controversial series without its equally controversial creator, who has remained in his position for more than two decades in spite of his own personal scandals?

In a statement about his departure, Fleiss congratulated Bachelor Zach Shallcross and this season’s winner, Kaity Biggar, and thanked Bachelor producer Warner Bros. and ABC “for 21 extraordinary years.” Regarding the future, he wrote, “They’ve found the perfect creative team for me to entrust The Bachelor franchise and keep this lightning in a bottle bold and moving forward. Let the journey continue.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.