Rachel Totally Slammed Clayton For How He Treated Her On The Bachelor
It certainly doesn't sound like reconciliation is in the future.
When Clayton Echard met Rachel Recchia’s friends and family on The Bachelor, they all warned him not to break her heart. Whether he meant to or not, unfortunately, that’s exactly what Clayton wound up doing. Rachel put her all into her relationship with Clayton, but ultimately she just wasn’t the one for him. After Clayton sent Rachel home, her quotes about his treatment of her show exactly how she feels about him now.
Rachel and Clayton hit it off pretty early on during Season 26 of The Bachelor. Throughout the season, Clayton said he had the strongest physical connection with Rachel, and for a bit, it seemed like Rachel would win Clayton’s final rose. But all that changed after Susie Evans left and Clayton admitted he’d been intimate with both Rachel and Gabby Windey. He eventually convinced Rachel and Gabby to stay on the show, only to send them home again when he decided to pursue Susie again.
During their final conversation in Iceland, major tears were shed — on Rachel’s part, at least. When Clayton revealed that he was going to try to make things work with Susie, Rachel told him, “I promise you, when you look back on this, this is gonna haunt you.” She even seemed to be waiting for him to change her mind. It was only when the car door closed that it hit her. “I was in love, but he was never in love with me,” she said on her way to the airport.
Since then, however, any lingering feelings for Clayton are long gone. When Jesse Palmer asked her if she was still in love during the finale’s “After The Finale Rose” segment, her response was firm. “I do not have feelings for him anymore. Watching him completely disrespect Gabby and I, since the beginning of Iceland, I don’t feel like it’s possible for me to watch that back and think that somebody who acted like that ever truly loved me,” she told Jesse. As for if she was ready to speak to Clayton, Rachel responded, “I don’t think he deserves to talk to me.” (Brutal, but iconic.)
Rachel did allow Clayton to speak to her, and during their convo, it was clear that any feelings of love were gone... mostly because Rachel said so. “None of these emotions are for you or about you,” she told Clayton right away. Then, she really let him have it, as her dad, Big Tony, watched proudly from the live studio audience. “I became collateral damage in your journey for love that was the most completely selfish journey,” she told him.
In hindsight, Rachel said she felt alone in their relationship. “I don’t believe you were in love with me at all,” she told Clayton. “I know I loved you.” She also brought up the less-than-ideal way that he treated her and Gabby. “There was no empathy at all for me or Gabby ... You not shedding a single tear and watching myself … I just can’t even imagine how you could do that, and I just think it’s so disrespectful,” she explained, specifically calling out his decisions at the “rose ceremony from hell” and the way he broke up with her and Gabby at the same time.
She didn’t accept Clayton’s apology, either. “I just don’t believe you,” she told him after he said he was sorry, implying his timing was sus. “The fact that this is the first time I’m hearing any sort of apology [is] on-camera...”
Rachel didn’t stop there, either. “You told me that I was the first person that you said, ‘I love you,’ to in six years. I had no reason to ever doubt you [then], so did you tell me that you were in love with me because you wanted to sleep with me?” Although Clayton responded with an unequivocal no, the implication was still there.
Suffice to say, Rachel is now a certifiable queen of confrontation and deserves all the roses — which she’ll get, since she was announced as the Season 19 co-Bachelorette alongside her pal Gabby.
