Clayton and Susie on The Bachelor.Photo: John Fleenor/ABC
Clayton Echardis acknowledging he could’ve approached his conversation with contestant Susie Evans better.
Clayton thensent Susie home, saying that “anything” else she said to him at that point “doesn’t matter anymore.”
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Now, the former NFL player is addressing their argument onThe Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast— and revealing that he regrets how harshly he handled the situation.
“I did not handle it well. I didn’t. I mean, it was not handled maturely,” he said. “I raised my voice to her. I was grasping at straws. I was trying to find anything that I could at that point to get her to stay. Like, I just wanted her to give me a chance. I went through this gauntlet of emotions.”
Clayton and Susie on The Bachelor.John Medland/ABC
Clayton said the pair’s conversation “was very cordial” at first, though he said things shifted when she declared she couldn’t move past his previous decision to be intimate with the other women.
“She got up and she walked out, and then I started to have these really dangerous thoughts,” he explained. “I thought, ‘Why does it seem like she’s not fighting for this? Why does it seem like she can’t even give me a chance?’ Like, I didn’t know she felt this way and I’m wondering why she won’t just try to give me a second chance because I wasn’t aware of how she felt.”
“I made assumptions and I wish I wouldn’t have,” he added.
The “dangerous thoughts” Clayton was having also led him to suspect Susie “was playing me the entire time as, as other women had.”
“That’s why I said, ‘I don’t know who I’m even looking at anymore,’ because, in that moment, I really believed at that point that she was just feeding me whatever she needed to to get out of there so she could be the next Bachelorette,” he said. “I don’t believe that now. I didn’t believe it the next day, but I believed it in that moment.”
When asked if he believes he gaslit her, Clayton said: “I totally disagree on the gaslighting concept because I was not trying to manipulate her from my bad benefit at all. I had no intention of doing that. I am not that kind of person. And that does strike a chord with me because that’s not me.”
Clayton Echard.ABC/Pamela Littky
Elsewhere in the podcast, Clayton opened up about why he told all three women he loved them. Though he said it “felt right” at the moment, he recognized that it ultimately wasn’t “a good idea.”
“You don’t want to tell multiple women that you’re in love with them. I mean, just look at it from the standpoint of, I told a woman that I love that I’m the most in love with you, implying I was in [love] with other women,” he said. “I mean, in what sense would, again, would you move forward with when getting engaged with somebody three days later, if you’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m in love with you, but I’m also in love with other women.'”
Added Clayton, “It doesn’t make sense. Now I see it. I’m like, it does not make sense, but I made it make sense in that moment. I had to let it make sense because if Susie and I didn’t have any physical intimacy, no compatibility, then I will say, ‘Okay, well that’s no longer. We’re not gonna work out, so now I need to focus on these other two relationships and who I feel most compatible with.'”
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“I wish I never would’ve fallen in love,” he told his parents in a shaky voice.
The Bachelor’s two-part finale airs Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
source: people.com
