Scoop from the source! DeAnna Pappas — one of the only people who knew Clare Crawley was secretly engaged to Dale Moss — joined Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast to reveal what really happened when she visited the OG season 16 Bachelorette at La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs in July.
“Don’t get me wrong, we talked about Dale a lot, but I went into the conversation with Clare and there was supposed to be a date that day,” the season 4 Bachelorette, 38, began about her chat with Clare, 39, which aired during the October 27 episode.
According to DeAnna, she and Clare were set to quiz the men on their knowledge of “lady parts,” but the hairstylist canceled the date after backlash from the contestants over the strip dodgeball date.
“[Clare] really stood her ground and was like, ‘Listen, I just put these guys through strip dodgeball, I don’t want to put them through something else that is really, really silly,’” DeAnna explained while telling Us about her winter survival must-haves, including Aloisia Beauty for self-care. “We talked for probably two and a half hours and unfortunately, you see two minutes of us just talking about Dale, Dale, Dale. … But really, we talked about everything. We talked about all of the guys.”
DeAnna added that she went to the set to “encourage” Clare.
“The producers had told me beforehand, they were like, ‘Listen, she only one guy, she really feels really attracted to him and she only wants him,’” the Bachelor season 11 alum recalled, noting that Clare said she was really “trying” to give the other men a chance.
According to DeAnna, season 13 Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay was the only other person “in the know” about the drama surrounding Clare’s season because she was supposed to film with the Sacramento native too. Us confirmed in August that Tayshia Adams took over for Clare because she and Dale, 32, got engaged within the first two weeks of filming.
“Pretty much all [the producers] asked me about was Clare and Dale. And they were, like, ‘Wouldn’t that be really great if this was their love story? And it was love at first sight,’” DeAnna recalled. “Then everything starts turning and I’m like, ‘They’re totally setting this up for the Clare and Dale show!’”
While DeAnna, who has spent time with Clare and Dale in recent weeks, thinks they are the real deal, Bachelorette viewers have been hard on the couple via social media.
“Since I was the only one who knew what happened, we would talk quite a bit through the process and I just felt bad,” DeAnna said. “[This should have been] a time in her life that was most joyful and that she was super excited about and she was pretty much like, ‘I’m deleting my Instagram, I can’t watch the show, I can’t handle the things that people are saying about me.’ And that’s wrong. Social media robbed the joy from what this should be for her.”
For more from DeAnna — including her reaction to Chrishell Stause almost nabbing her Bachelorette role and thoughts on Tayshia’s first night as the Bachelorette — listen to Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast.