Clayton Echard’s girlfriend, Susie Evans, admitted she was “annoyed” that multiple people were sleeping on the former “Bachelor” during the “Bachelorette” season 19 premiere Monday.
“Clayton generally handled it better than I did. I was annoyed,” Evans, 28, said on Tuesday’s episode of the podcast “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe.”
“He can laugh at himself, and I can laugh at Clayton . . . and I can laugh at myself. But also, my fear is, does this open the floodgates of all the hate and stuff? … But Clayton certainly went with the flow. … He was able to laugh.”
During the first episode of the new season — starring two female protagonists, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia — quite a few men toasted Echard, 29, for telling both Windey, 31, and Recchia, 26, that he loved them and slept with both. women during the fantasy suites of season 26 of “The Bachelor” last year.
One contestant bluntly referred to Echard as a “piece of st,” a few referred to the double dumping during their entrances into the “Bachelor” mansion, and one man even hired a children’s choir to sing “Clayton Sucks.”
“Do I think that’s what should have been shown? I mean no. I really think it was cyberbullying or an attack or it will lead to cyberbullying,” Echard said in the podcast. “And that’s why I’m not the biggest fan of how that was shown, but it was and… it’s just the nature of the beast.”
Echard added that he is ready to “just ignore it” and “let it pass” because while he had a “muck” of a season, he is now happy at Evans because of “this whole environment.”
As for the children’s choir?
“I’m going after those parents,” the former football player joked.
While the episode aired, Echard got support from many other former Bachelor Nation figures such as Katie Thurston and “Grocery Store” Joe Amabile.
Echard also took to social media during the premiere, tweet“It’s not personal, it’s business.”
Season 19 of “The Bachelorette” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.