Tayshia Adams And Zac Clark's Relationship Timeline Was A Journey
Raise your hand if you also feel emotionally crushed by their split.
Every rose has its thorns — including Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark’s relationship timeline. The couple initially met when Adams stepped in to replace Clare Crawley as the lead for Season 16 of The Bachelorette. While Clark didn’t win her first impression rose, they developed a powerful connection during their first one-on-one date, during which they dressed up as a bride and a groom. That scene felt like foreshadowing — it was all too easy to imagine them as a happily married couple. Sure enough, Clark popped the question to Adams with a Neil Lane ring, and shortly thereafter, she moved from California to New York to live with her fiancé.
Engaged life seemed to suit them: They celebrated Christmas together, spent time with each other’s families, traveled, and even ran the New York City Marathon side by side. They even began planning their wedding.
However, breakup rumors tended to swirl around them, and ultimately, those whispers turned out to be true. Approximately one year after fans fell in love with them, Adams and Clark went their separate ways. On Nov. 22, her rep told multiple outlets, “Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark are no longer a couple.”
Here’s how their ~ journey ~ as a couple progressed.
November 2020: Fans Saw Adams & Clark Meet On The Bachelorette
After Crawley departed Season 16 of The Bachelorette, Adams stepped in for a shot at finding love. While sparks flew with Clark during her first cocktail party, which aired on Nov. 10, she didn’t offer him the first impression rose (that honor went to Spencer Robertson).
December 2020: The Bachelorette Aired Their First One-On-One Date
Clark scored a pretty special one-on-one date: a bridal-themed photoshoot. They got to know each other on a deeper level as they tried on wedding gowns and suits for a photographer.
That evening, Clark opened up about his history with a substance use disorder. He shared that he had been sober for the past nine years after developing a drug addiction following a surgery to remove a brain tumor; that experience inspired his current work as an addiction specialist. Their emotional conversation continued to build the foundation of their relationship.
December 2020: Fans Watched Clark Propose To Adams
After Adams ended her relationships with runners-up Ben Smith and Ivan Hall, she gave her final rose to Clark.
In a deeply moving speech, she told her soon-to-be-fiancé, "I have tried to come up with so many reasons to not believe, and you have truly just made me believe that there doesn’t need to be flaws, and that I deserve a love with a man that won’t run away. I’ve truly woken up my heart, and yes, it is real and I feel it, too. And I want to make more traditions and jump into fountains all over the world with you. I’m ready to hail a taxi and I’m ready to start a life with you. But also, I love you Zac Clark. And I’ll do absolutely anything to keep that huge smile on your face, because you do everything to keep a huge smile on mine."
Clark replied, "When my parents got to see that smile on my face, you gave them the best gift you could ever give them. They haven’t seen me that happy in years. You did that. And that’s how I know. That’s when they knew. And the other night we were talking, we spoke about this idea of someone choosing you and I can’t picture another day, another moment without you in my life. And, if you’ll let me, I’m gonna choose you right now. I’m gonna choose you tomorrow morning. I’m gonna choose you next week. And next year. I’m gonna choose you forever. Because I love you."
Next, he got down on one knee to ask her to marry him. He presented her with a 3.25-carat emerald-cut diamond ring designed by Bachelor Nation’s go-to jeweler, Neil Lane.
As Traci Brown, body language expert and author of Persuasion Point: Body Language and Speech for Influence, told Elite Daily, Adams looked “speechless” and “overwhelmed” with “genuine surprise” during the proposal. Though she might have been caught off guard, Brown said she radiated joy. “She for sure wants him,” she said.
Meanwhile, Clark appeared to be “totally excited” and “a little bit relieved” that she said yes.
December 2020: They Told More Of Their Love Story
In a series of interviews, Clarky and the Queen — every power couple needs a nickname — opened up about how their feelings for each other developed over the course of the show.
"[There were] a couple of moments that he really won my heart over," Adams told Elite Daily on Dec. 23. "Aside from him interacting with my family and that going so well, I think it also has to be our hometown date. I think he was just so thoughtful and kind and loving that day. I really did start to see a life with him in New York. So that kind of sold me."
During that same interview, Clark revealed a sweet tidbit about their night in the fantasy suite: "We had this amazing conversation and Tayshia fell asleep in my arms at probably about 4 a.m., and I didn't feel like I needed to keep her up. I didn't feel like we had to talk about a bunch more things. It was just this peaceful moment and it felt like everything was right."
He also recalled the meaningful moment after a rose ceremony when he realized Adams was his perfect match. “The guy came out with the tray of champagne and there was four champagnes and one apple cider and she looks at him and she goes, ‘No, I’m drinking apple cider with him tonight,’” he explained during a Dec. 31 appearance on the Clickbait podcast. “And I said, ‘What?!’ She made the guy go back, get an apple cider while all these people are waiting. So, she was on team Clarky that day, and that’s when I knew.”
As for their future? Well, it looked bright. Adams, a California native, announced her plans to be bicoastal during a Dec. 23 interview on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast. "I'm going to keep my place here. But yeah, we're moving in together!" she shared. Clark's home in New York City was an ideal spot for the former phlebotomist. "I wanted to move to New York last November, but it didn't work out. But look at it now!" she said.
February 2021: Clark Was Eager To Plan Their Wedding
According to Adams, Clark wanted to tie the knot ASAP. As she told Marie Claire in a Feb. 24 interview, “At first, Zac was the person to be like, ‘We could get married next week.’ And I was like, ‘Slow your roll.’ I’d love to date a year. And now I’m like, ‘You want to … maybe next month?’ And he’s like, ‘Tayshia, slow your roll.’ We’re back and forth. But there’s no timeline. It’s definitely going to happen. I just don’t know when.” Later, she added that 2022 might be the year they say “I do.”
She also admitted to Marie Claire that dating in front of the watchful eyes of Bachelor Nation made her occasionally doubt the strength of her relationship. “I’m not at all thinking about [ending the relationship],” she said, though fans’ nosy questions and intrusive comments made her wonder, “‘Is there something I’m not seeing?’”
March 2021: Adams Shut Down Breakup Rumors
Bachelor Nation began speculating that the fiancés were on the rocks after Adams was seen without her engagement ring. “There are all of these weird rumors circulating around that I’m not wearing my ring and Zac and I are broken up,” she said on Instagram Stories on March 15. "Everything is good."
She didn’t love the speculation though. “Not gonna lie, I don’t like getting DMs putting this weird energy into the universe lol,” she added. “I love that there’s so much love and support around our relationship but please don’t put unnecessary rumors/pressure on us.”
It turns out her ring finger was bare for a totally benign reason: It was being cleaned and resized, since the original band was a tad too big for her.
April 2021: Clark Acknowledged Their “Ups And Downs”
Getting engaged mere weeks after meeting sounds stressful — and Clark confirmed that himself in an April 8 interview with Us Weekly. “A couple months after [our engagement], there was some ups and downs, of course, and, like, well-documented, but at the end of the day, it’s all good right now.”
August 2021: Adams Spoke About The Challenges Of Dating Long-Distance
Since Chris Harrison’s exit from Bachelor Nation, Adams has taken on the role of co-host of The Bachelorette, which put some pressure on her relationship with Clark. During filming, the couple was long-distance, and it was anything but easy.
During an interview on the Ben & Ashley I Almost Famous podcast, Adams explained, “It's hard to be in a new relationship and then kind of go away for a couple of weeks, you know what I mean? And this is me being real and honest.” She added, “I think after that, it was kinda like we need to remember why we were with each other, and I think that that's absolutely normal."
November 2021: They Ran The NYC Marathon
On Nov. 7, 2021, Adams and Clark ran the New York City Marathon together. Throughout the 26.2-mile race, they seemed like total couple goals, sticking together and supporting one another. But celebrity gossip account DeuxMoi later shared anonymous claims about Clark’s unsupportive behavior during the marathon.
Not to mention, Tayshia’s IG about the marathon wasn’t exactly romantic. Though she thanked Clark for running with her, she left it at that. Plus, she didn’t even respond to Clark’s post about the race despite his lovey-dovey words. At one point, he wrote, “The world is a better place today then [sic] it was yesterday because of you…..KEEP GOING ❤️.”
November 2021: They Broke Up
Rumors that Adams and Clark had gone on a break started on Nov. 19 with a report from Life & Style. At the time, it seemed like more like speculation than anything else. However, by Nov. 22, Adams’ rep confirmed that the couple had called it quits, telling multiple outlets, “Tayshia Adams and Zac Clark are no longer a couple.”
Though the exes didn’t share any more details about the reason behind their split, on Nov. 21, Adams liked a telling post on Instagram, reading, “Finally I realized that I was never asking for too much. I was just asking the wrong person.” Yikes.
