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Happy birthday to The Bachelor! Host Chris Harrison celebrates online

ByBrittni Miner|
THE BACHELOR - "Season Finale, Night" Two - America watched live on Monday night as a devastated and extremely emotional Colton finally decided what would be best for him. He put everything on the line, but what will happen to him and the remaining women? Find out on night two of the two-night, live special Season Finale event on "The Bachelor," TUESDAY, MARCH 12 (8:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network, streaming and on demand. (ABC/John Fleenor)CHRIS HARRISON
THE BACHELOR - "Season Finale, Night" Two - America watched live on Monday night as a devastated and extremely emotional Colton finally decided what would be best for him. He put everything on the line, but what will happen to him and the remaining women? Find out on night two of the two-night, live special Season Finale event on "The Bachelor," TUESDAY, MARCH 12 (8:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network, streaming and on demand. (ABC/John Fleenor)CHRIS HARRISON

Whip out the cake and candles! The Bachelor celebrates its birthday today and Chris Harrison has posted about his joy on Instagram.

Happy birthday to The Bachelor! That’s right: believe it or not, our favorite ABC reality series first premiered on this day in 2002. Some quick math reveals that we’ve been tuning in, crying and getting wine-drunk for a whopping 17 years.

Since that premiere so many years ago, we’ve seen 23 seasons of The Bachelor, 14 seasons of The Bachelorette, 3 seasons of the ill-fated Bachelor Pad, 1 season of Bachelor: Winter Games and 5 seasons of Bachelor in Paradise. This isn’t even to mention the countless podcasts and YouTube channels that former contestants have gone on to host or the international versions of the series. Now that is a lot of red roses.

In honor of the day that should be a national holiday, beloved host Chris Harrison took to Instagram to celebrate. He kept things very simple, reflecting on his life’s work with a simple picture and short caption.

"On this day in 2002 we started a crazy new show called #TheBachelor I could go on and write the longest caption ever but I’ll just say Thank You! #BachelorNation"

Yep, in case you were wondering, that is the original art for the series. Not a lot has changed on that front. Nowadays, promos focus more on pictures of the hunk or beauty leading the season, but this simple hand-to-hand photo still puts the focus in the right place.

The Bachelor has had a great ride so far and there are no signs of things slowing down. This season continued to have excellent ratings and Hannah Brown’s upcoming season of The Bachelorette is looking really good. You can catch more info on her episodes here!

So how will you celebrate The Bachelor’s big anniversary? Thankfully, Tubi is releasing those early seasons of the series if you want to play a little catch up and revisit the old days. Colton’s season is also currently available on Hulu. We highly suggest getting those tissues ready for a good cry and then putting up your own sentimental post like Chris Harrison did.

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