Clayton Echard was such a poor lead on his season of The Bachelor that his incompetence literally changed the face of the latest follow-up run for The Bachelorette. And now he’s shocked that things didn’t pan out so well?!?! Dude, we know you’re a football-playing meathead, but come on! It can’t be that hard to understand how we got to this point!
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The 29-year-old reality TV star spoke to The Virginian Pilot on Sunday, and he didn’t hold back in sharing his displeasure with the newspaper. In fact, he summed up his crazy season on the hit ABC reality show in just a few short words:
“It was a train wreck, honestly, of a season.”
Yeah, no kidding! We’ve been saying that!!!
Of course, Bachelor Nation fans will recall all the end-of-season drama between Susie Evans, Gabby Windey, and Rachel Recchia. Evans (pictured above, inset) chose to leave the competition after learning Echard had hooked up with Windey and Recchia near the end of the show. She later took Clayton back, while Windey and Recchia were rewarded by producers with dual leading roles on this current season of The Bachelorette — a first for the show.
It wasn’t just the ending, though. Clayton drew fans’ ire throughout his season, from being involved in a slut-shaming controversy to appearing to share displeasure for ever doing the show in the first place. That was NOT a good look for the leading man! So in his chat with the Virginia-based newspaper on Sunday, Echard was clearly fed up. He admitted that watching back the season caused him great stress because he didn’t like the man he saw on screen:
“Watching it back, I was embarrassed and disgusted by my actions and the way I was portrayed or seen on TV. Ultimately, I had to live with the fact that my narrative is what was shown. And that was hard because that’s not really who I am. I don’t feel that what I was on the show is who I truthfully am but I did those things, I became that person.”
Hmmm…
Saying “that’s not really who I am” is a wishy-washy thing. Just own your on-air actions, dude! But Clayton didn’t do that. In fact, he told the outlet that he places his blame on… viewers?!?! Echard said:
“The hatred by way of numbers was really hard for me to overcome. Had it just been a few messages I would’ve passed it off. Had it been hundreds of messages, I might have questioned it. … But for me, it was thousands of messages, and in a very short period of time, so it became very overwhelming.”
OK. That sucks. Now reflect on what the women who do that show have to go through!! In the end, Echard admitted that finding Evans on the show made things worth it for him. Still, he told the outlet that he wasn’t going to volunteer himself for the experience in the future:
“I would never, ever do it again.”
Yeah, something tells us they’re not going to be coming back to give you a second shot at love, either.
See ya!!
[Image via Clayton Echard/Instagram]
