After watching Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia’s suitors mock the season 26 Bachelor on the Monday, July 11, premiere of The Bachelorette, Clayton Echard and Susie Evans are trying to laugh it off — but admitted that the slander stung.
“As I saw the episode, I was very happy to just feel that I’m like, you know, ‘It’s not personal, it’s business,’” Clayton began on the Tuesday, July 12, episode of the “Off the Vine” podcast, telling Kaitlyn Bristowe that he learned his new motto via Matthew McConaughey’s book, Greenlights. “And I’m happy with where I’m at today. I’m pushing the things I want to push on. I’m chasing my true purpose and passion in life, finally, for the first time, and I think through all the muck, and everything that I went through, here I am because of this entire environment. … So as I saw the show, the episode and all of the attacks and the song, the choir — I’m gonna go chase down those parents — I honestly didn’t really get a reaction other than I just kind of laughed.”
During Monday’s premiere, Gabby and Rachel reflected on Clayton falling in love with both of them — and Susie — and sleeping with the pilot and the ICU nurse in the fantasy suites during his season, which aired earlier this year. After Susie self-eliminated, the former football player begged Gabby and Rachel to stay, only to ask them to leave when he realized he wanted to be with the wedding photographer. Clayton and Susie reconnected after filming wrapped and are living together in Virginia.
While the women certainly made references to Clayton on Monday, their contestants threw tons of shade — Johnny called him a “piece of s—t,” Jason joked about being in love with three women and Alec brought a choir of children singing “Clayton sucks.”
“Clayton handled it better, overall, than I did. I was annoyed,” Susie told the season 11 Bachelorette on Tuesday. “Like come on. Clayton has given, you know, he can laugh at himself and I can laugh at Clayton. … And I can laugh at myself. But also, my fear is, like, ‘Does this open the floodgates back up of all the hate and stuff?’ So that’s where I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, really?’ But Clayton, definitely was, like, going with the flow. … He was able to laugh.”
The Missouri native clarified that he was “about to find light in it,” but doesn’t necessarily think that the slander needed to be highlighted during the episode.
“Do I think that it’s that’s what should have been shown? I mean, no. I do think it was cyberbullying or an attack or it’s going to lead to cyberbullying,” Clayton said. “And so for that, I’m not the biggest fan of how that was shown, but it was and like you said, it’s just the nature of the beast. I’m gonna lose sleep over this point anymore. If I start giving more power to people that have no interest in my passions and they’re gonna try to just pull me off this path that I’m now on and I’m full steam ahead on, to me it’s as simple as just ignore it. Let it pass because … I’m not going to give people power that should have no power over me.”
While the episode was airing, Susie, meanwhile, took to TikTok, lip-syncing to Will Smith’s infamous “Keep my wife’s name out your f—king mouth” quote from the 2022 Oscars. (In March, the actor came under fire for slapping Chris Rock for joking about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head amid her struggle with alopecia.) She also replied to a Twitter user’s suggestion that the couple make a video dancing to the choir.
“On it,” she wrote.
The Bachelorette airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll through for more reactions to the premiere:
