Proceeding with caution. Tayshia Adams was more than thrilled to step into the Bachelorette role, but there is one thing that she would have liked her predecessor, Clare Crawley, to warn her about.
During a Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance on Thursday, November 5, the Newport Beach, California, native revealed to host Jimmy Kimmel that the two ladies never crossed paths at La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California. However, Adams wishes she had the chance to talk to Crawley, 39, about the group of guys competing for love on the show.
“We didn’t speak, she had just gotten engaged [to Dale Moss]. So, there was a lot going on,” the 30-year-old reality star said. “I wish we would’ve so she could’ve thrown me a bone and warned me about a guy or two!”
On Thursday, Bachelor Nation witnessed the moment Crawley decided to step away from her leading role on the ABC series to be with Moss. After the two got engaged, Adams stepped in as the hairdresser’s replacement.
Before making her way over to La Quinta, the Bachelor in Paradise alum was not provided with many details from producers about the circumstances that led to her being cast.
“Honestly, I got the phone call and it was more so, ‘Hey, you’re the girl,’ and I’m like, ‘I got you.’ And I was there,” she explained. “I think everything was just kind of moving very quickly, and no, they didn’t share that news [of Clare’s ending] with me.”
The former phlebotomist said that she “left within 48 hours or so” after finding out she was the next Bachelorette. Upon arriving and subsequently moving into Crawley’s former El Presidente suite, she “saged the place” to give herself “some good juju in there.”
Before Crawley’s final episode, she had been spotted wearing a diamond ring on her left hand. She has since spoken out via Instagram Live about being “the happiest” she’s ever been amid her engagement to the 32-year-old South Dakota native. Additionally, the Bachelor Winter Games alum defended the couple after a fan claimed that they wouldn’t last three months, saying: “I’d like to say, ‘Pay up,’ because we just had our three-month anniversary!”
Crawley’s departure and Adams’ arrival is an unprecedented occurrence to take place on The Bachelorette amid an unusual year during the coronavirus pandemic, which initially delayed production on season 16 from March to July. However, ABC executive Robert Mills shut down speculation that the casting change was orchestrated by the network.
“It is insane,” he told Variety after Thursday’s episode. “You just think, ‘Oh my gosh, I swear we didn’t plan this.’”
The Bachelorette airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
