From The Bachelor to post-show life, Clayton Echard and Susie Evans’ journey has been anything but conventional.
The season 26 lead’s relationships with his finalists blew up during the 2022 season when Evans called Echard sleeping with Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia a dealbreaker. The former football player subsequently convinced Windey and Recchia to stay — saying that he loved all three women — but ultimately sent them home ahead of the final rose ceremony because he had the strongest feelings for Evans.
“Just because I loved her the most, did not mean I had made a definitive answer that she was The One,” Echard said on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast in March 2022 after the finale aired. “I do believe everything happens for a reason. And when she left, like, I said, ‘OK, I have these two incredible women here and I need to continue to pour into them because this is what apparently, exactly needed to happen. So give these women your all and see if maybe you’ll end up walking outta here with one of ’em.’”
While Evans briefly returned to the show, she didn’t accept Echard’s final rose.
“To be honest with you, I knew she would show up ‘cause I knew it wasn’t her character not to show up. But I was very, very certain she was going to say no to me. I kind of anticipated that,” Echard told Us, explaining why he picked out an engagement ring. “I wanted her to know that, ‘Hey, I’m for real about this. I really, really do love you and I would get down on a knee,’ but I was reading the room. I was waiting to see how she came in, and I could tell by her mood and through her words that I’m, like, obviously, this will not lead to a proposal. This is going to lead to the end of the line. I had come to terms with that. It hurt me, but I was like, ‘Whatever she tells you, respect it and be thankful that she showed up.’”
They ultimately reunited before the series started airing in January 2022 and during spring 2022, the twosome moved in together in her native Virginia Beach.
“We’ve talked about it and we know from here on out, like, this is a relationship in the real world where you never know — anything can happen and we’re aware of that,” Echard told Us. “We’re gonna give this every chance that we can. We love each other. And as of right now, we’re both very, very happy. But relationships take effort. They are hard at times. And so we know that there’s gonna be those moments that lie ahead. There’s never any guarantee in life, but with all that being said, I am incredibly happy to be with her. I’m so excited to be able to just go get dinner, to go hiking, do all these things with her, travel.”
By August 2022, however, the Missouri native revealed that the duo were set to live apart.
“Currently, we are in Virginia Beach, but our next step actually is, I’m moving to Scottsdale, and she’s going to move in the interim to L.A. Only a 50-minute flight apart, but we’re both chasing our dreams, and I think location-wise, we both feel that those are the spots that we want to be,” he said on the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. “I mean, I’m working on my computer 10, 12 hours a day. So she was like, ‘Clayton, I’ll move to L.A. and then we can travel on the weekends to see each other.’ And we’ll see. We don’t know if we’re going to like that long-distance.”
The following month, they announced their split.
Scroll through for more from Echard and Evans about their relationship:
“Looking back, I would’ve said something way earlier,” Evans told Us about not wanting Echard to have sex with his finalists. “There really wasn’t a great time to have that conversation. Things move so fast. We both experienced it in different ways. You go from hometowns and then you think, ‘OK, I might be going home.’ And then all of a sudden, you’re in Iceland. And then all of a sudden, you’re the third fantasy suite date and it’s too late to get a conversation. But I also didn’t think that I should tell Clayton how to do this. And I guess that was my mentality — ‘This could prove our compatibility or not.’ And we have kind of come to the conclusion that I was living with my real-world expectations, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And Clayton adapted to, I guess, the process and dating multiple women. He acted in a way that many Bachelors before have.” ABC/Craig Sjodin
“I think we learned a lot from our discussions after the show more than anything. We didn’t hold back. We rehashed that entire night on several occasions and we both could have done better that night,” Evans told Us in March 2022. “I could have communicated it better. [Clayton] could have communicated better, [he could have been] more understanding of my perspective. We both learned so much. And watching it back, it was sad, and it was tough because I could see on Clayton’s face when I brought up that topic … you could see the devastation in his face and that realization of, like, coming back down or coming back over to the real world where I was living. It just broke my heart because I knew it was coming. So it was tough to watch.” Echard added that the pair used their journals to help communicate. “When we started talking after the show, we opened up our journals because we had really written down everything from the beginning to the end of the journey and we opened them up and we just read them to each other all the way through,” he said. “I didn’t take out anything. There was a lot of stuff in there and I wanted her to know this is exactly how it went. These are my inner thoughts.” ABC/Ricky Middlesworth
The pair were rocked with cheating allegations in April 2022 when a woman messaged the wedding photographer that she slept with the former Bachelor the night before. Echard, for his part, quickly denied the claims as he wasn’t even in the same state as the woman. Still, Evans admitted her stomach “dropped” at the time. “I clicked my messages and I’ve got a message from her. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, like, there is no way.’ Of course, in that moment, my stomach, like, dropped because I was just like, ‘What?’” she said on the “Talking It Out” podcast at the time. “I just couldn’t have even, like, fathomed Clayton of all people — like, I just genuinely have so much trust in him as a good human being before anything else. And then I see a text from him. And he’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s people speculating online, like, this is crazy.’ And we FaceTime immediately. … He’s in his brother’s apartment in Arizona. This is, like, the day after supposedly that she was with him.” Evans added that the drama, which ended with the woman admitting it wasn’t Echard but instead a man pretending to be him, helped their romance grow. “It just led to conversations, like, ‘How do we navigate this in the future?’ And also just, like, coming down to pure trust. … [He has] pure intentions and [a] genuine soul, that I would never ever, ever imagine this to happen,” Evans said. “The only times that we fight or argue, it's never about, like, us. It's about the weird situations that we have been thrown into because of a public relationship. We did have some, like, just tough conversations for the future of like, ‘What are our expectations for each other?’ …. This is, like, such a new territory. And like, we don't know who to lean on to navigate this stuff, so we have to lean on each other.” ABC/Pamela Littky
“We’re like, ‘We don’t know if it’s going to be a month-long [relationship] from here or if it’s gonna be lifetime but, like, there’s no pressure. Let’s just love each other and be thankful,’” Echard said on “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast in August 2022. “We’re very, very happy right now and in a really great spot, but yeah, we went through it — together, though. Thankfully, she’s been on my side and that’s the only reason why I can sit here with so much positivity is because of her.” Courtesy Clayton Echard/Instagram
One month after announcing their plans to move out of their shared home, they announced via a joint statement that called it quits. “With incredibly heavy hearts, we wanted to share that we have decided to go our separate ways. For anyone who has ever loved, knows this was a painful decision to make and not one taken lightly,” their statement began. Clayton and Susie admitted that “social media is definitely a highlight reel,” but many of their experiences have been “kept private” over their time together. “But we will share this — although this last year together has brought us so much joy and so many laughs, there has also been a significant amount of pain. We know no healthy relationship comes without its struggles, but we’ve realized that we were not prepared for the external forces that hindered our ability to not only heal as individuals but also as a couple. We both are focused on continuing to work on ourselves, so we can be the best version of ourselves,” they continued. “This is not an easy time for either of us but we stand in support of each other and hope to see the other go on to find happiness and healing. Although Claysie is no more, we hope that our communities can support us individually as we move forward with love and respect for each other. Thank you to all of you that supported our relationship. It means so much more than you will ever know. ❤️” ABC/Craig Sjodin
“I had no business being the Bachelor with the person that I was then. … The person I was now would have handled things 100 times better,” Echard said on the “Off the Vine” podcast in October 2022. “I wouldn't have been held accountable if I wasn't placed in a spotlight where everyone could see every single corner of who I was every piece of me. I mean, I do think it all happens for a reason. I think I wouldn't have been able to get through what I got through with anybody other than Susie. She was the only person that was going to help me see what I saw. And she was the only person that was going to keep me from going off the rails and doing something extremely drastic because I had very dark thoughts from the show — moments where I said, you know, ‘It’d be better off if I just ended things.’ And the fact that I had her with me as I was thinking that — I'm like, ‘What if I didn't have her?’ You know, 'Where would I have been then?’” Courtesy of Clayton Echard/Instagram
The twosome cited their different communication styles, backlash from Bachelor Nation and Echard struggling to heal amid a “self-identity” struggle as reasons for their split. Evans also felt like she was in “limbo” as Echard debated career changes. “It sucked because when we had this conversation an hour ago, I was like, ‘So if I would have just picked the stability route, could that have changed things?’” he asked on “Off the Vine,” referring to his debate about going back to corporate America but ultimately picking his mental health advocacy career. “And I realized that safe doesn't bring you happiness, sometimes. … And I realized I can't give up on this dream and this passion of mine, how do I find enough stability mentally that I can provide for Susie but also, like, I don't want to take away from me chasing after my passion that, truthfully is giving me life — just chasing and reaching these kids and making a major difference bigger than I ever have.” Courtesy of Susie Evans/Instagram
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