Blake Horstmann and Bennett Jordan react to The Bachelor finale. Pic credit: ABC
Bachelor Nation stars haven’t held back when it comes to offering up their thoughts on Clayton Echard and the questionable ways he’s behaved on The Bachelor.
Recently, Bachelor in Paradise Season 6 star Blake Horstmann expressed why he thinks Clayton Echard lacks empathy and suggested it has something to do with his experience, or lack thereof, on Michelle Young’s season of The Bachelorette.
The Bachelorette Season 16 star Bennett Jordan also weighed in on the conversation with a blunt message that seemed to take aim at Clayton’s maturity level and The Bachelor producers.
Blake Horstmann discusses Clayton Echard’s lack of empathy
Blake Horstmann shared one of his tweets about Clayton on his Instagram page.
In the tweet, Blake wrote, “Clayton doesn’t seem to have enough empathy in these moments because he wasn’t in love with Michelle [Young] and didn’t get his heart broken on national television.”
Blake added, “The leads have a better shot at finding love if they are from the top 3 and have fallen in love in this environment.”
The Bachelorette Season 18 viewers will recall that Clayton never developed a strong connection with lead Michelle Young before being eliminated during their first and only one-on-one.
It appears Blake thinks Clayton is unable to grasp the ways in which he’s hurting finalists Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia because he’s never been in their shoes as a finalist in love.
Along with the tweet, Blake captioned the post, “A LOT to unpack from tonight but I have been saying this for a long time…”
Bennett Jordan suggests Clayton Echard is productions’ ‘puppet’
Bennett Jordan commented under Blake’s post with a rebuttal. He believed that where someone places as a candidate in The Bachelor franchise has nothing to do with an ability to empathize.
Bennett wrote, “I would counter this argument and say whether you’re top 5 or top 3 does not matter at all as long as you know the journey works. It’s a matter of men vs. children on a tv show to get married, and unfortunately puppets are chosen over men when production wants to play the lead.”
Blake resonated with Bennett’s comment as he responded, “completely agree.”
Do you agree with Blake or Bennett’s assessment of Clayton Echard and his lack of empathy?
The Bachelor finale airs Tuesday, March 15 at 8/7c on ABC.
I felt so bad for Gabby and Rachel and even Susie. He got mad at Susie and he should not have to be told sleeping with the others negates his professions of love. He used Gabby and Rachel in my opinion. He is not a great guy as his mother professes.
Clayton lacks the ability to experience emotions in the way most people do, probably because he’s on the autism spectrum, in my opinion. He reaches simple concrete solutions to complex emotional problems, ie, I’ll be transparent! without understanding that there’s nothing to be gained and everyone will be devastated. I’ll bet that Susie understands that when she speaks for him on the season finale and has made her peace with his disability. If he were a narcissist as many think he would be more clever and manipulative.
I don’t empathy has anything to do with where you finish on a previous season. I don’t think he would’ve done anything different during his season if he had finished higher during Michelle’s. I think Nick Viall said it best when he theorize that Clayton was ‘focused on finding love for himself and not finding love with someone else.’