Clayton Echard’s girlfriend, Susie Evans, admitted she was “annoyed” that multiple people took digs at the former “Bachelor” during the “Bachelorette” Season 19 premiere Monday.
“Clayton handled it better overall than I did. I was annoyed,” Evans, 28, said on Tuesday’s episode of the PodcastOne “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe” podcast.
“He can laugh at himself, and I can laugh at Clayton … and I can laugh at myself. But also, my fear is, does this open the floodgates back up of all the hate and stuff? … But Clayton, definitely was going with the flow. … He was able to laugh.”
During the first episode of the new season — which stars two female leads, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia — quite a few of the men roasted Echard, 29, for telling both Windey, 31, and Recchia, 26, that he loved them and sleeping with both women during the fantasy suites of “The Bachelor” Season 26 last year.
One contestant bluntly called Echard a “piece of s–t,” a few referenced the double-dumping during their entrances at the “Bachelor” mansion and one man even hired a children’s choir to sing “Clayton Sucks.”
“Do I think that’s what should have been shown? I mean, no. I do think it was cyberbullying or an attack or it’s going to lead to cyberbullying,” Echard said on the podcast. “And so for that, I’m not the biggest fan of how that was shown, but it was and … it’s just the nature of the beast.”
Echard added that he is ready to “just ignore it” and “let it pass” because while he had a “muck” of a season, he is now happily with Evans because “of this entire environment.”
As for the children’s choir?
“I’m gonna go chase down those parents,” the former football player joked.
As the episode aired, Echard received support from many other former Bachelor Nation figures such as Katie Thurston and “Grocery Store” Joe Amabile.
Echard also took to social media during the premiere, tweeting, “It’s not personal, it’s business.”
“The Bachelorette” Season 19 airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.