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Bachelor Clayton Echard and Susie Have Blowout Fight Ahead of Finale: ‘She’s Just Torn Me Apart’
Warning: Spoilers ahead. Broken hearts — and it’s not even the finale. Clayton Echard and one of his final three contestants Susie Evans had a blowout fight during The Bachelor fantasy suites stage in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Throughout the episode — which aired on Tuesday, March 8 — the beauty queen, 28, revealed to viewers that she was “spiraling emotionally” at the thought of the season 26 lead sleeping with fellow contestants Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia.
“Whether it’s, like, him falling in love or being visibly intimate with Gabby, I can’t grasp the concept of it,” Susie said during her confessional through tears. “For me, sex is connective with somebody. I just hope Clayton’s on the same page and sees it from my perspective. … I don’t really know what’s happening. It would suck not to end up with Clayton.”
Ahead of her date, Susie said, “I feel like it’s ending.”
When it came time for their one-on-one, Clayton and Susie spend time at the Sky Lagoon hot springs before sitting down for an intimate conversation at dinner. “You’ve made me feel a way I haven’t felt in so long, and it’s so exciting when I finally allowed myself to open up and feel those feelings,” Clayton said. “I am in love with you, and I’ve wanted to tell you.”
Susie, for her part, responded by admitting that she feels “uncomfortable” knowing he might be in love with someone else and with the thought that he might have slept with the other women.
“Those are things I think would be impossible to move forward toward an engagement,” she shared. “If I’m sharing your love with somebody else, I don’t think I would be comfortable.”
He responded, in part, saying, “Yes, I have slept with someone else here, and yes, I have expressed feelings to someone else of falling in love.”
The potential couple continued their back and forth, with Susie explaining, “If you feel like you’re in love with me, it doesn’t make sense to sleep with somebody else.” To which, Clayton replied, “I told myself coming into this that I wouldn’t fall in love with multiple women, but it’s happened.”
Although Clayton said he “would have changed” his decisions if he knew it would “be a dealbreaker” for Susie, the damage had already been done. With tensions heightened, Susie walked away from their dinner and started to cry.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of. I don’t believe in anything anymore. Everything is invalidated,” Clayton said while walking away visibly frustrated. The two continued to argue with Susie saying she “f–ked things up” and Clayton wondering why she didn’t share any of her reservations earlier. “We’re done. I’m done,” Clayton told her, apologizing for raising his voice and walking her out.
“She’s just torn me apart,” Clayton told host Jessie Palmer. “She just completely destroyed me.”
With Susie’s apparent departure from the show, fans wondered whether or not she would return for the finale. Amid fantasy suites, Reality Steve — otherwise known as Stephen Carbone — reported a spoiler on his blog, telling fans that Susie will stay and ultimately reject Clayton’s proposal. Reality Steve then issued a correction to his original reporting and says that Clayton does not propose, just tells Susie he loves her but she still rejects him and leaves.
“I don’t think anyone expected my journey to end the way that it did, including myself, nor did I want it to be that way,” Clayton told Glamour in an interview published on Monday, March 7. “Everyone will be kind of surprised. I wish it could have went any other direction, but it went the direction that it did.”
The Bachelor season 26 finale airs via ABC on Monday, March 14, at 8 p.m. ET.
