While it seems Dale Moss has secured Clare Crawley’s final rose, would other members of Bachelor Nation be down to accept it?
Former Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants have been very vocal about the 39-year-old hairstylist’s stint as the season 16 lead … which will seemingly come to an end during the Thursday, November 5, episode. Us Weekly confirmed in August that Clare stopped filming the show within the first two weeks of production because she was already in love with one of her suitors. ABC subsequently called Tayshia Adams to take over the role.
While reports initially suggested that Clare quit the show, she has since “liked” a series of tweets implying she was forced to step down. Host Chris Harrison, for his part, has maintained that Clare is in control of her own destiny.
“This season of The Bachelorette was completely about Clare. It’s all about Clare, and she will decide where we go from here. It’s totally, completely up to her,” he told Entertainment Tonight on October 28.
ABC executive Robert Mills, meanwhile, admitted that production was worried that the season was “going to be Dale from episode 1 to episode 10” during shooting.
“When she didn’t give out that rose [on the roast group date] and she just gave it to herself, that was it. That was really it, when we started making the call [to replace her],” he said on the October 27 episode of the “Viall Files” podcast.
“I think that Clare was exactly what we thought she’d be, which is Clare — unpredictable,” Mills added. “Nothing ever comes easy to Clare. The one time she’s the Bachelorette, she would have been better off in that group setting.”
Clare’s bestie and Bachelor in Paradise season 1 costar Michelle Money, however, believes the network may have been planning to bring in Tayshia from the beginning.
“It feels to me that they had a plan, and they were executing the plan and I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad plan. Clare obviously fell in love with Dale really quickly, but the irony is that Tayshia had to have come in and quarantined before even filming,” Michelle dished on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “They had this girl already on standby before they even knew what was going on with Clare and Dale. What was going on behind-the-scenes that Clare had no idea was going on that was completely manipulated and produced?”
Scroll through for reactions to Clare’s stint as the Bachelorette: