Bachelor Nation’s Clare Crawley is sending a public message to Nick Viall and Natalie Joy’s 3-month-old daughter, River, amid their ongoing drama.
Crawley, 43, took to Instagram on Wednesday, May 8, to share a screenshot of a conversation with a fan via her Instagram Story. The message took a shot at Nick, 43, and Natalie, 25, writing, “The convos around women, especially former Bachelorettes, being ‘too’ much of anything are a lot. Too emotional, too difficult, too indecisive, etc. Nick making money of making it hard for women to not get people in their comments.”
Crawley, for her part, responded by echoing the fan’s sentiment. “Tale as old as time. If standing up for yourself, having boundaries, and not letting people take advantage of you is considered being difficult … then I don’t know what to say lol,” she replied. “I can only pray these people raise a child that is capable of being difficult for others in order to stay true to themselves.” (Nick and Natalie welcomed their daughter in February.)
The tension between Crawley and the duo began on the Tuesday, May 7, episode of the “Viall Files” podcast, where Nick and Natalie brought up Clare’s name while recapping Maria Georgas’ stint on The Bachelor season 28.
“I also heard from some friends of ours who are close to the source that filming with [Maria] was close to filming with Clare Crawley,” Natalie alleged.
Nick noted that Clare was “famously the only Bachelorette who quit a week into filming,” adding, “which kind of tracks, I mean, Maria quit even before filming started.”
Within hours of the podcast airing, Clare shared a quote via her Instagram Story seemingly pointed at Nick and Natalie’s claim. “To the women perceived as ‘aggressive,’ continue to be assertive. To the women perceived as ‘bossy,’ continue leading. To the women perceived as ‘too much,’ continue taking up space. To the women perceived as ‘awkward,’ continue to ask hard questions. To the women: be yourself,” the message read.
Back in March 2020, Clare exited season 16 of The Bachelorette early when contestant Dale Moss popped the question. (After an on-and-off relationship, the twosome split for good in September 2021.)
Maria, for her part, claimed on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast earlier this month that the next Bachelorette role was “mine until I said it wasn’t,” explaining she backed out of the gig because she was “not in the right headspace.” Nick, however, alleged that he thinks “there’s another version to this story.”
Nick also clapped back at Maria’s “bizarre conspiracy” that he played a role in her feud with fellow contestant Sydney Gordon. (On “Call Her Daddy,” Maria speculated that Nick’s friendship with fellow Bachelor alum Ashley Iaconetti — who has a relationship with Sydney, 28 — may have led to her edit on the ABC series. She also added that Nick theorized that she would become the “villain” if she joined the franchise.)
“That is true, long ago I did tell Maria — because Maria used to always ask me to get her on the show — and I did tell her that I could see her being the villain,” Nick said. “And somehow that turned into Maria thinking that in my zero free time and not knowing that she was on the show that somehow I made it my mission to [take her down].”
Natalie added, “It’s just giving delusional, honestly, at the end of the day.”
Later that day, Maria responded in a since-deleted Instagram Story, resharing a TikTok that read, “You’re so delusional. … My honest reaction,” and included a video of Drake dancing unbothered.
