Everything Clare Crawley Has Said About ‘The Bachelorette’ Season 16 Switch-Up

Credit: ABC

Everything Clare Crawley Has Said About ‘The Bachelorette’ Season 16 Switch-Up

Some Bachelorette viewers are ready for Tayshia Adams to start handing out roses … but what exactly went down on set of La Quinta Resort with OG lead Clare Crawley? The season 16 Bachelorette has started to speak out about the shake-up. ABC named Clare, 39, the Bachelorette in March. After production was suspended for several months amid the coronavirus pandemic, the hairstylist, host Chris Harrison, the contestants and the show’s crew traveled to Palm Springs to quarantine for two weeks before the cameras started rolling. By the first week of August, news broke that Clare was no longer looking for love because she already found The One after less than two weeks of filming While several members of Bachelor Nation were subsequently spotted on set, sources told Us Weekly that Tayshia, 30, took over where Clare left off with the season 16 suitors. Ahead of the October premiere, ABC executive Robert Mills confirmed that Tayshia was one of the women producers met with before they gave Clare the job. Peter Weber’s contestants Victoria Paul and Victoria Fuller, and Tia Booth from Arie Luyendyk Jr.'s season were also on the shortlist. While the network continued to play coy about Clare’s departure, fans saw Harrison tell Clare she “blew up The Bachelorette” in a trailer for the season. He later teased the switch-up during a chat with Entertainment Tonight. [jwplayer IP2UdSFO-l3ahXupL] “[She’s] not not the Bachelorette,” he said about Tayshia in September. “In all seriousness, Tayshia is a very good friend of mine. I absolutely love and adore this woman, and I would love for her to have that opportunity to be the Bachelorette, should that ever arise. … She would be a great candidate [for Bachelorette]. She always was. She was on the top of our list from the start.” Harrison isn’t the only host who’s weighed in on the drama. Us broke the news that season 12 Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher stepped in to guide several episodes after Harrison had to leave Palm Springs to take his son to college. “When I got the call, I didn’t know what was going on. I had no clue. I was seeing the rumors you guys were seeing and when I got there, I got the rundown and it was nothing like I was seeing,” JoJo told Us in October 2020. “There were a lot of other things happening, a lot of rumors that were not true. It’s unlike any other season for a number of reasons. Obviously, the circumstances, obviously there’s a shake-up.” The Bachelorette airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll through for everything Clare has said about the situation: Hear the Us Weekly editors break down the most surprising celebrity births during the pandemic in under 2 minutes!

Credit: ABC

Everything Clare Crawley Has Said About ‘The Bachelorette’ Season 16 Switch-Up

Some Bachelorette viewers are ready for Tayshia Adams to start handing out roses … but what exactly went down on set of La Quinta Resort with OG lead Clare Crawley? The season 16 Bachelorette has started to speak out about the shake-up. ABC named Clare, 39, the Bachelorette in March. After production was suspended for several months amid the coronavirus pandemic, the hairstylist, host Chris Harrison, the contestants and the show’s crew traveled to Palm Springs to quarantine for two weeks before the cameras started rolling. By the first week of August, news broke that Clare was no longer looking for love because she already found The One after less than two weeks of filming While several members of Bachelor Nation were subsequently spotted on set, sources told Us Weekly that Tayshia, 30, took over where Clare left off with the season 16 suitors. Ahead of the October premiere, ABC executive Robert Mills confirmed that Tayshia was one of the women producers met with before they gave Clare the job. Peter Weber’s contestants Victoria Paul and Victoria Fuller, and Tia Booth from Arie Luyendyk Jr.'s season were also on the shortlist. While the network continued to play coy about Clare’s departure, fans saw Harrison tell Clare she “blew up The Bachelorette” in a trailer for the season. He later teased the switch-up during a chat with Entertainment Tonight. [jwplayer IP2UdSFO-l3ahXupL] “[She’s] not not the Bachelorette,” he said about Tayshia in September. “In all seriousness, Tayshia is a very good friend of mine. I absolutely love and adore this woman, and I would love for her to have that opportunity to be the Bachelorette, should that ever arise. … She would be a great candidate [for Bachelorette]. She always was. She was on the top of our list from the start.” Harrison isn’t the only host who’s weighed in on the drama. Us broke the news that season 12 Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher stepped in to guide several episodes after Harrison had to leave Palm Springs to take his son to college. “When I got the call, I didn’t know what was going on. I had no clue. I was seeing the rumors you guys were seeing and when I got there, I got the rundown and it was nothing like I was seeing,” JoJo told Us in October 2020. “There were a lot of other things happening, a lot of rumors that were not true. It’s unlike any other season for a number of reasons. Obviously, the circumstances, obviously there’s a shake-up.” The Bachelorette airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll through for everything Clare has said about the situation: Hear the Us Weekly editors break down the most surprising celebrity births during the pandemic in under 2 minutes!

Credit: ABC

Staying Tight-Lipped

“A lot of stuff happened on this season,” Clare said on Good Morning America ahead of the October premiere. “I feel like it would not be doing it any justice if I was to give any of it away to you.”

Credit: Craig Sjodin/ABC; MediaPunch/Shutterstock; AFF-USA/Shutterstock

The Tayshia Tease

Clare got defensive during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in October when Jimmy Kimmel asked about Tayshia.

“Jimmy, I showed up. … I was there for the journey. I was there to fall in love,” she said. “I am the one sitting here. I am the Bachelorette.”

Credit: ABC/Bob D'Amico

To Quit or Not to Quit

"I did not quit," Clare maintained to Entertainment Tonight in October about any shake-ups. "I stayed the whole time. I went, I did what I was gonna do there, I showed up. I didn't quit anything."

Credit: ABC

Love at First Sight

During the season 16 premiere, Clare declared she just met her “husband” when Dale Moss walked off the limo. During an exclusive chat with Us, she got candid about the “breathtaking” moment and why critics shouldn’t judge how quickly she fell for Dale.

“My question would be to the people that are saying that — to the people that question it — what exactly is the formula for falling in love? Is there one way to do it? Is there one example of this is how it’s done?” she asked Us. “Who are these people to decide how long it takes somebody to fall in love? Is it a week? Is it a month? Is it a year? Is it two years? How people fall in love and the amount of time that it happens or what the process is [changes]. It’s not for anybody to really decide if there is a cookie cutter for that.”

Credit: ABC/Maarten de Boer

The Future of the Franchise

Clare told Us ahead of the premiere that she hopes her season changes the show. “I hope that it does change the way future seasons go because when you follow your gut and you stick to that, you can’t regret anything,” she said. “You honor yourself … your truths. That’s something we all should be doing.”

Credit: Maarten de Boer/ABC

How Her Journey Ends

“I literally gave this season my best. I went there to fall in love and I wanted to see this season through. I would never bow out or dip out or take a shortcut on anything,” she told Access Hollywood in October. “I wanted to fall in love … I saw my journey through.”

Credit: Craig Sjodin/ABC

The Tweets

After the first two episodes aired, Clare “liked” a series of tweets implying that she was sidelined for Tayshia.

“I think they were trying to force her out on some real,” read a fan tweet “liked” by Clare in October. “And I really feel like they are giving her a bad edit (just my opinion). They are feeding into the narrative and the rumors and making it seem like it was Clare’s decision that this ended and I feel like that’s not the case. They had Tayshia quarantined 9 days after Clare started filming. They wanted to remove Clare. And I just don’t think it’s fair.”

Clare “liked” other posts about production controlling the narrative.

“Production knows exactly what they were doing. They’ve never had a lead just ‘quit’ and with how excited and how bad Clare wanted this, I doubt it. They were ready with a back up and as soon as they found out that Clare was into Dale it was a wrap,” the tweets read. “Don’t you see with how the last two episodes have been produced, there’s no drama and the drama that they’ve shown has been dramatized and fixated to make Clare look a certain type of way. Production has control over literally everything. They know what they’re doing.”

Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

More Tweets

Clare alluded that editing was to blame for the notion that she didn’t like any of the men besides Dale after the October 27 episode teased Tayshia’s entrance. “I just also think there’s a possibility that she is giving the other guys a chance (or at least trying) and we’re not seeing it because that wouldn’t fit the Dale-obsessed storyline,” reads a tweet “liked” by Clare. “Although their reactions make it clear that if she’s trying, they’re not feeling it.”

Another tweet Clare “liked” reads, “People saying that @Clare_Crawley is wasting everyone’s time without realizing that she’s contractually obligated to do so. I would also wager that there are many seasons where the lead talks about their frontrunner just as much, we just don’t see it #BacheloretteABC.”