Susie Evans and Clayton Echard are back together after she rejected his proposal on the show, and it’s all thanks to Susie sliding into Clayton’s DMs.
The Bachelor contestant reached out to Clayton the day she got back from filming, and the two began repairing their relationship over a series of hours-long phone calls.
However, Susie revealed that she wasn’t pursuing a relationship with Clayton when she reached out, and it took many conversations to understand his actions on the show.
Susie Evans reached out for a ‘candid conversation’ with Clayton Echard
Susie sent Clayton a message from the New York airport with her phone number and an invitation to have one more conversation.
Their five-hour phone call that night sparked months of reconnecting and an eventual label of boyfriend and girlfriend.
“When I reached out to him, I was just like, ‘hey, we haven’t really had the capacity, the time, the environment to really put things out there and for you to be able to tell me what happened that night,’” Susie told Nick Viall on the Viall Files podcast.
She questioned him on whether his Fantasy Suite blowup was his normal reaction during a fight, and how their relationship spiraled so quickly.
Even after gaining a better understanding of the event through their off-screen conversations, Susie said she was not ready to jump back into a relationship with Clayton.
“We were able to really get to the bottom of that and be like, okay this is what you understood to be your truth in that moment, and not that it warrants the way he treated me, but I have grace for like that mentality,” Susie said.
The Bachelor contestant explained that Clayton felt blindsided and truly believed she was trying to be The Bachelorette in that moment.
Susie Evans asked Clayton Echard to be her boyfriend
As for how the pair found their way into a relationship again, Susie said that they talked for weeks, comparing notes on the show, sharing their journal entries, and exploring their compatibility.
She was finally ready to give things another go when she opened up about a huge insecurity and felt reassured by how Clayton responded to her story.
Despite turning down his marriage proposal months earlier, Susie herself was the one who pitched the boyfriend and girlfriend question to Clayton, who happily accepted.
Watch Susie’s entire interview below.
The Bachelor is currently on hiatus.