After last night’s premiere of Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia’s season of The Bachelorette, fans, and alums have been buzzing.
Two of those people were last season’s leading man, Clayton Echard, and his current girlfriend and winner, Susie Evans.
Susie and Clayton watched from home as the male contestants continued to roast and throw shade at Clayton during their introductions.
While it didn’t seem to bother Clayton as much, and he was able to laugh off most of it, Susie had some things to say, including the fact that it promoted cyberbullying.
Susie Evans speaks out about the shade thrown at Clayton on The Bachelorette premiere
As Clayton and Susie appeared the morning after the show’s premiere on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s podcast, Off the Vine, they discussed how they felt after he was roasted constantly by the suitors.
Susie told Kaitlyn and viewers, “Clayton handled it better, overall, than I did. I was annoyed. Like, come on. Clayton has given, you know, he can laugh at himself, and I can laugh at Clayton. …And I can laugh at myself.”
She went on to counter that by saying, “But also, my fear is, like, ‘Does this open the floodgates back up of all the hate and stuff?’ So that’s where I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, really?’ But Clayton definitely was, like, going with the flow. …He was able to laugh.”
Susie even took to TikTok during the aired premiere and lip-synced her version of Will Smith’s quote from the 2022 Oscars. Moreover, she replied that she and Clayton are planning a response to the children’s choir song that sang about how ‘Clayton sucks.’
Clayton Echard responded to the haters as well
While Clayton mentioned he could laugh off most of the insults and shade thrown at him, he also stated that he would be lying if he said he wasn’t bothered or stung by some of what was said.
During the podcast episode, Clayton revealed that he’s happy where he is and has been trying to live by the motto he gained from reading Matthew McConaughey’s book Greenlights.
He declared, “So as I saw the show, the episode and all of the attacks and the song, the choir – I’m gonna go chase down those parents – I honestly didn’t really get a reaction other than I just kind of laughed.”
Clayton has spoken out continuously since his season of The Bachelor aired about mental health and how down and depressed he got while the show was airing.
Susie’s main concern after watching The Bachelorette premiere is that Clayton will fall back into some of those hard times. However, it seems that with Susie by his side and those dark times behind him, Clayton will be able to shake off what he watched last night and continue to move forward.
For the entire Off the Vine podcast episode with Clayton and Susie, click here.
The Bachelorette airs on Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.