Clare Revealed Which Of Her Contestants DMed Her Before Filming

Let's get this out of the way first: It wasn't Dale Moss. But there was one Bachelorette contestant who DMed Clare Crawley before filming began. Per a clip from Crawley's upcoming season of The Bachelorette, released by Entertainment Tonight on Oct. 13, contestant Blake Moynes slid into her DMs before they met IRL. "During the quarantine, Clare posted on her Story that she was really struggling right now because of what her mom is going through at the hospital, so I want to check in if she’s OK," Moynes explained.

Unfortunately for him, the move didn't exactly go over well with Crawley. "Over quarantine, it was really hard for me and you were the only guy who reached out to me the entire time," she told him. "I didn’t want to bring this up, but there are these weird rules that we have to follow for the show of not contacting somebody. So, you broke the rule that you're not supposed to contact somebody." Oh, and, to be clear, her tone in the clip is not, like, flattered by the gesture. She seemed very much disappointed.

The clip ends there, and I hate that I fell for such an obvious teaser but I'm officially hooked and cannot wait to tune into the premiere to see what happens next.

Whether or not Crawley had any contact with her contestants before filming has been a source of fan intrigue since August. "One of her potential guys found a way to get in touch with her and they began talking," a source reportedly told People at the time. "By the time filming officially began, they were basically already in love. No one else stood a chance. It just became so obvious from her subsequent few dates that her heart wasn’t in it and she just wasn’t feeling it. Then she said she wanted out."

It sounds like the reported source got their facts half right. While one of her contestants clearly did find a way to get in touch with her early, the man she wound up falling for is now widely theorized to be Dale Moss — but they reportedly didn't speak before the show began.

Crawley's pal Michelle Money set the record straight on that rumor with an Instagram Story back in August. "Clare Crawley never spoke to Dale before filming," Money revealed a couple days after the People report. "That is 1,000% factual information. Never happened, fake news. She was impressed by his social media account. But never DM'd, never texted, never talked. 1,000% fake news."

OK, need to tune in tonight for details on this absolutely gorgeous mess.