For a guy not used to the spotlight, Clayton Echard is getting a crash course. The newest star of ABC’s The Bachelor was on a rose-themed float (naturally) at this year’s Rose Bowl Parade when he spotted a spectator wearing a sweatshirt featuring his alma matter, the University of Missouri. “One person was wearing a Mizzou hoodie and I freaked out,” Echard tells Glamour. “I think he freaked out, too. He was like, Why is this guy pointing at me and screaming?”

You may have heard Echard mention once or twice (or maybe a lot) on the premiere of The Bachelor that he’s from Eureka, Missouri, a small town outside of St. Louis, and just a midwest guy. But memes and jokes aside, it’s a big part of the 28-year-old’s story. 

“I think I was mentioning that so often because growing up in Missouri my entire life, I don’t have a ton of experience traveling around seeing different things,” he admits. “I’m a guy who this is all new to. Everything is new to me. I’m just so used to being in this little bubble of Missouri my entire life and now I’m just out of my element doing all these wild things.”

Wild is an understatement. Not only is he dating multiple women—and apparently falling in love with at least three of them—but he’s doing it at a mansion outside of Los Angeles, with trips to lavish locations in Europe and Canada as well. 

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Even so, Echard seems to have a good handle on his new life, even if his parents don’t exactly approve of the way he went about a few things. But that’s The Bachelor for you, and the orthopedic sales account executive is determined to make it work for him. So, with one episode under his belt, we Zoomed with Echard in Los Angeles to find out what’s going on with first impression rose-recipient Teddi, if we’ve seen the last of Salley, and why he broke his own rules.

Glamour: What surprised you most when you watched the premiere episode, since you’re not privy to a lot when you’re filming?

Clayton Echard: The shock was all the drama I wasn’t present for. I would be filled in by the women throughout my journey. With Claire, I had Serene come and say, “Hey, she’s saying she hates you.” Of course, when I hear that, I just met all these women night one. It’s like, do I believe Serene or do I go talk to Claire? On night one, you don’t know anybody. I have to take everything with a grain of salt in some aspects, but I also have to realize, okay, now I’m going to start getting to know these women.

Did you ever find out what Claire’s deal was? Was she just saying that she hated you to stir up drama, or what?

Well, I don’t think she hated me. I’d be really very shocked if someone could hate someone after meeting them for five minutes. I think she was frustrated and my thoughts are, as people saw on night one, we didn’t have a lot of time together. It might have been all of  two or three minutes. Mara came walking in and stole me away. I think Claire was very frustrated by that, because she was hoping to have more time so we could get to know each other. While I get that, there’s also the other side of it where I didn’t even get to talk to some of those women night one. I talked to them out the limo, but I didn’t get to go sit and talk with them later in the night. Those women were still very appreciative and weren’t saying hurtful things. For that, I thought it was a little out of line for her to go to the extent and say that. When I heard it, I thought this is already bad juju. I don’t want to deal with this. Night one, I have so many other incredible women here. We just need to go our separate ways.

I’m still impressed you seemed to know everyone’s name because most of the women looked alike to me; I could barely remember who’s who.

It’s a lot. You’re hearing all these stories. The great thing is, they had different stories. They weren’t all from the same backgrounds. I thought there was a lot of adversity amongst the women. Because of that, I could start associating particular past experiences in these women’s lives and put a face to the name, and then also take that experience and put that to the name so I was able to remember them all. But night one, that’s a lot. It’s so hard to get to know everybody in one night.

Have you seen the memes saying Susie looks like a mix of Hannah Brown and actor Debby Ryan?

Oh, yeah. I see everything, I think. I read everything online, much to my own detriment. I see it all. Yes. I saw those comparisons, people compared me and Jesse Palmer to each other. I’ve been compared to other individuals. Everyone’s just having fun with it. It’s cool to see everybody’s having a good time and enjoying poking fun at me and everybody else.

The Bachelor is back, and it’s exactly the same as we left it. Well, not exactly. There’s a new host, Jesse Palmer, and a new leading man in Clayton Echard (who looks suspiciously like some of the previous leading men). And among the 31 new contestants are three nurses, one Bat Mitzvah dancer, and one—wait for it—33-year-old.

Arriving in a vintage convertible, Jane tells our new Bachelor, “I’ve been called a cougar once or twice, but I like to consider myself vintage, like a classic car.” Again, Jane is 33 years old, which you may or may not have caught, because her age literally flashes onscreen three times to remind us. To his credit, Clayton says “She’s a cougar?” as Jane walks away. So maybe she looks only, oh, 32 in person. See the moment for yourself around the 2:05 mark: 

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But lest that be the end of the questionable age moments, immediately following Jane walks out a woman named Holly, age 63. She claims she’s “in the wrong place” and is really there for the upcoming senior version of The Bachelor. It’s awkward for everyone involved, and all I can say is Holly deserves better.

For the record, Clayton is 28. He’s a grown-ass man, or at least should be. And had he ended up with Jane—spoiler alert: she was sent home—they would have a measly five-year age gap. Right now feels like a good time for me to be the zillionth person to say the term cougar is misogynistic and outdated; if the roles were reversed, not a single eye would bat.

Now, I’ll concede that it’s possible—possible—the show was in on the joke by poking fun at the age thing and only highlighting that Jane’s 33 because of how young she actually is. But this isn’t the first time the Bachelor franchise has shown its casual ageism.

During Colton Underwood’s season, a contestant named Elyse revealed on a group date that Colton was the first younger man she’d dated—a move which earned her a rose for being so “vulnerable” and drew ire from her younger competitor (and current Bachelor Nation mainstay) Demi Burnett. Elyse was 31 to Colton’s 26—another deeply scandalous five-year difference. As Glamour’s Anna Moeslein wrote at the time, “Her delivery was off, but maybe Demi was right after all when she snipes, ‘There’s no advantage to being an older woman here.’”

And then there was Clare Crawley’s brief tenure as the Bachelorette, which was marked with a Graduate-inspired poster. Not only was the placement puzzling (In the original image for The Graduate, a younger Dustin Hoffman is framed by Anne Bancroft’s leg. Attention to detail, people!), but it was also accompanied by the tagline “It’s about time.” Clare was 39.

There was a lot I liked about the latest premiere: The women seem, by and large, here to entertain, and I could write a whole other article about contestant Claire who, upon meeting Clayton, used actual human agency to decide he was a no for her. (Although, yes, she could have been a little nicer about it.) And while the show has made some efforts to overcome its problems with race—with varying degrees of success—the other “isms” seemingly have yet to be addressed at all. I don’t expect the show to change overnight, but moving on from the idea that a woman over 30 is the butt of the joke seems like the bare minimum.

Lindy Segal is a writer, editor, and disaster on Twitter. Follow her @lindysegal. 

The beginning of January can be tough. It’s cold, there’s no more holiday cheer, and tax season is looming. But there’s always a silver lining, and right now that lining is on the small screen. A few things are premiering on TV this week that will surely cure your post-holiday blues, like This Is Us and The Bachelor. Here are the highlights to snuggle up with on the couch: 

Sunday, January 2 

Next Level Chef: Per Fox, Next Level Chef is “the next evolution in cooking competitions, as Gordon Ramsay has designed a one-of-a-kind culinary gauntlet, set on an iconic stage like you’ve never seen.” 8 p.m. E.T. on Fox

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Monday, January 3 

The Bachelor: Here’s everything we know about Clayton Echard’s season. 8 p.m. E.T. on ABC 

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Tuesday, January 4 

This Is Us: Here’s everything we know about season six (the last season!) of this beloved series. I’m already sobbing. 9 p.m. E.T. on NBC

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 Thursday, January 6 

Women of the Movement: Per ABC, this is “a limited series event based on the true story of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley.” 8 p.m. E.T. on ABC

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Friday, January 7

The Tender Bar: Ben Affleck stars in this movie directed by George Clooney. Read an official description, below. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

“The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R. (Tye Sheridan), a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck), is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother (Lily Rabe) struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her—and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father (Christopher Lloyd)—J.R. begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams—with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.”

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Things heated up when she heard Weber and Sluss were “having troubles” in January 2020. By February, the pair met up at a Bachelor Nation engagement party and ended up leaving together. “He was like, ‘I have so much to tell you,'” Brown said. 

In her book, she explained that they slept together before Brown learned he was having thoughts about Prewett. “The chemistry just wasn’t there,” she said. “It just sucked. And then, I found out he had another girl on his mind. It was all so bizarre.”

On November 18, Peter Weber responded to Brown’s exposé on his podcast, Bachelors in the City. “I thought we were just going to keep it private, but I guess that wasn’t the case,” he said, per People. “And I’m totally okay with it, it’s all good. I don’t mind any of this.” 

As Weber recalls, Bachelor producers actually warned him not to attend the engagement party because Brown would be in attendance, but he went anyway. “I ended up leaving [the party] and then I was like, ‘I want to talk to [Brown] more,’” he said. “I remember I pulled over, I texted her and I was like, ‘Hey, let’s chat. You want to talk more?’ And so I ended up coming back to the party and she snuck out of the house without anyone figuring out and got in my car.” 

In the end, he agreed that their hookup “wasn’t the same as I think we had originally felt,” but he harbors no ill will. He said, “Obviously I wish her all the success and all the support and I guess now our little secret’s out there.”

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May 22: Well, not entirely. Sluss couldn’t resist the bait when fellow Bachelor Nation alum Nick Viall brought Peter up in her Instagram comments. On May 21, Sluss posted a couple of bikini shots on Instagram with the caption, “Got my eye on the prize.” Viall got cheeky in the comments, suggesting that she should have captioned the photo “Dear Peter.”

“As far as captions go…‘Dear Peter’…would have been a home run,” he wrote. Sluss replied that he “nailed it.”

September 2: And you thought she was done… “I feel like I’m on my third life now. Prior to the show was one life and then the show was my second life, being engaged included, and now I’m on my third life living in Los Angeles, being single and kind of just making the most out of this new life,” the 24-year-old told Us Weekly in a new interview. “It’s just it’s truly been crazy. To think that I was like, engaged, probably getting married this fall, it just blows my mind. I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you, Lord!’”

She continued, “I think if [Peter and I] would have made it through, you know, the first year, I think we would have made it. I don’t know, I think that’s just me being positive. The show is just really stressful, especially having to watch all that back. I feel like we would have made it through that, we would have definitely gotten married and made it through it because we both have family values, but I think sometimes it’s not about meeting the right person, sometimes it’s about the right time and place.”

She admitted, “We just weren’t at the right time or place. And we’re not the right people for each other either, but you know what I mean.”

November 17, 2021: Following Hannah Brown’s reveal in her new book that she hooked up with Pete Weber while his season of The Bachelor was still airing (and that it wasn’t great), Sluss seemingly took to TikTok to make her feelings known. 

“When the tea officially spills…” she wrote over her video lip-syncing to the TikTok sound, “That was embarrassing. I really hope you’re embarrassed. Wow.”

She captioned the post, “always trust your instincts ladies.”

The 26th season of The Bachelor is upon us. 

In September, ABC announced that Clayton Echard is the new Bachelor. It also announced that Jesse Palmer will replace Chris Harrison as host. 

Palmer was the Bachelor for the show’s fifth season in 2004, although he didn’t end his season with the traditional proposal. Since retiring from football in 2007, Palmer has appeared as an analyst on ESPN and host on various shows on the Food Network and ABC. 

Here’s everything else we know about season 26 of The Bachelor:

Clayton Echard is the Bachelor. Spoiler! In a very unconventional choice, ABC went with Echard, a contestant from a Bachelorette season that doesn’t air until October 19. (Echard is a contestant on Michelle Young’s season.) Echard works in orthopedic sales, at least until he becomes a full-time employee of the Bachelor Nation fam, and played football at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

According to Us Weekly, “Clayton stood out right off the bat” and producers “wanted to switch things up and go with someone new and someone who hasn’t been in the spotlight yet.”

Jesse Palmer is replacing Chris Harrison as host.  Former Giants player, former Bachelor, and ESPN football analyst Jesse Palmer is replacing original host Chris Harrison after he stepped down. “For more than 20 years, ‘The Bachelor’ has brought the world dozens of unforgettable love stories, including at one time, my own,” Palmer said in a statement. “Falling in love is one of life’s greatest gifts, and I am humbled by the opportunity to return to the show as host this season to offer the newest Bachelor advice gained from firsthand experience and I am grateful to play a small part in his journey.”

The Bachelor returns in 2022. ABC hasn’t announced an official premiere date, but season 26 of The Bachelor is expected to premiere in 2022. 

The season is filming right now. Season 18 of The Bachelorette wrapped in September 2021, and The Bachelor went into production later that month. 

The mansion is back, baby! After filming at various resorts across the country because of the coronavirus pandemic, the mansion is finally back. Executive producer Mike Fleiss tweeted a photo of the home on September 26 with the caption, “We’re back, baby!!! Feels good…”. 

This post will be updated. 

In the first episode of the season, each cast member introduces themselves and shares what they’re most known for from their Bachelor or Bachelorette season. Some of this year’s hits include: being smacked by a vibrator, spilling champagne on one’s own face, profuse sweating, and most of all, being rejected.

In their shared rejection, the castmembers are the most like us. Yes, these people were able to take off the summer, buy 400 bikinis, and spout lines about true love like they are doing an eye exam in a greeting card aisle. But before that, they faced romantic disappointment. The glaring, naked desire for fulfillment that we often see on reality shows is turned down on Bachelor in Paradise. These people have—if not loved and lost—been at least fairly embarrassed on television. The result is a mixture of “fuck it” and adult summer camp.

“I’ve started to learn to actually love myself,” says Kelsey, the champagne spiller, of her growth since Peter’s season. “And I’m not looking for someone to fill my holes”

“Did you expect…for you…to be working with us…in paradise?” Tammy asks guest host David Spade, trying to suss out his identity. (She later guesses Dave Chappelle.)

In Monday night’s episode Demi, a Paradise second-timer with manic Elle Woods energy, brings up the Colton Underwood revelation in the best way. “This has never happened to me before,” she says, after getting rejected by another participant. “Except Colton, and that was brutal. But he was gay!” Which—accurate, brief, fair! In another scene, Jessenia, who was on Matt’s season, shares the racist harassment she experienced after co-starring with the first Black Bachelor. 

This season also marks the return of Tahzjuan, the people’s contestant. She, more than any other cast member, behaves how I think many of us would if we were filming a dating TV show in the summer in central America: She overheats, sweats extravagantly, and gets something in her eye and can’t blink it out. In this season, she starts a romance with Tre, after revealing that she has gone on a date with his uncle.

This. This is what reality TV is for. Join me on the digital daybed this August. When Bachelor in Paradise releases new episodes, days feel sunny, life is simply easier to bear.

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter. 

The on-and-off relationship between former Bachelor star Peter Weber and contestant Kelley Flanagan seems to be over for good.

After an official breakup announcement in December 2020 and a Super Bowl reunion in February 2021, Flanagan is opening up about their final split and why things ended on “really bad terms” shortly after reconnecting.

“It ended really badly,” she said on the Chicks in the Office podcast on May 21, per People. “I essentially went off on him. I ended up leaving New York and going to one of my girlfriend’s houses and hanging out with her. He texted me, I didn’t respond and then found some news out that I wasn’t happy about. We still had each other on Find My Friends, we were closing it out, it was ending but still wasn’t necessarily done.” 

While Flanagan says she eventually told Weber to “get the hell out of my life” and “lose my number,” the reality star pilot reached out “the other day.”

“I’m just not responsive,” Flanagan said. “There’s a lot of things that you hear. This world is very small. I even get stopped by girls in Nashville and they’re like, ‘My friend hooked up with Peter last week!'”

During his infamous season of The Bachelor, Flanagan didn’t even make it past week six. Weber proposed to Hannah Ann Sluss at the end of his season, then called off the engagement and dated runner-up Madison Prewett for a minute. It wasn’t until the 2020 Super Bowl that Weber and Flanagan reconnected and began dating. Though Weber’s mom Barb was clearly a fan of Flanagan, things didn’t last.

“Obviously, I wish her well and everything. I just want her to be happy, more than anything, but…we’re not in contact anymore,” Weber told E! News in April 2021. “But definitely, I’m always rooting for her and want her to find her happiness.”

While that might be true, Kelley Flanagan had plenty more to say about him during the podcast interview. “He loves Pokémon cards and he loves playing video games and he loves going out and partying,” she said. “There was a while where I was trying to convince myself that that’s what I liked and I was like, ‘Alright, Kelley, let’s be honest with yourself. Does that add up for you?’ “

She also described the moment Weber went against her wishes and announced their initial breakup on New Year’s Eve (Flanagan didn’t post until January 3). “I asked him not to do it on New Year’s and I was like, ‘Can you just give me a couple days to tell people?’ “ she said. Flanagan also claimed that ABC recommended they wait until the day before the premiere of Matt James’ Bachelor season to make the announcement.

Flanagan said executives thought people were “excited about other things,” which would distract from the breakup,  but “[Peter] had to do it in 2020.”

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It would be an understatement to call the most recent season of The Bachelor dramatic, even on a franchise known for scandal. Having Matt James as the show’s first Black male lead brought to the surface contestant Rachael Kirkconnell’s racially insensitive actions. The mishandling of that fallout was so bad that longtime host Chris Harrison actually stepped away from his role. Things only got more complicated when  Kirkconnell won the season, leaving many to wonder if the relationship could be salvaged after so many challenges.

Well, love never dies. “I’ve seen Rachael a handful of times,” James told People on April 28. “I’m not pursuing any relationships right now outside of that. I said I was going to focus on my relationship with her and that means focusing on it.”

This is a total 180 from what he said on the After the Final Rose special, when he revealed the two had broken up. That said, they were apparently spotted together in New York and Los Angeles since then. Breaking up is hard to do!

As for whether Kirkconnell is taking the necessary steps to learn from her past mistakes, James said, “That’s something you could talk to her about.” On that After the Final Rose special, he seemed hopeful that Kirkconnell was the type of person who could learn, grow and change, telling her, “The work and reconciliation that needs to be done is work that I can’t do for you…. And I know that you’re capable of doing it.”

Speaking of Bachelor Nation folks in hot water: Former franchise lead Colton Underwood recently came out as gay and was greeted by a wave of support. However, it was followed by backlash when members of Bachelor Nation tried to get his upcoming reality series canceled because he’d been accused of harassment in a past relationship…which started on the show. 

 

Former Bachelor star and NFL player Colton Underwood shocked the world last week when he came out as gay in an interview with Good Morning America. The very same day, entertainment publication Variety reported that Netflix is developing an unscripted reality show with Underwood that will focus on him “living his life publicly as a gay man” with the help of “gay guide” Gus Kenworthy, an out Olympic freestyle skier.

Although Underwood’s coming out was warmly received by many, a petition seeks to highlight the reality star’s abusive past while calling for the cancellation of his forthcoming Netflix series.

The description of the petition—which had over 22,000 signatures at the time of publication—alleges that Underwood stalked his ex, Cassie Randolph, whom he met on Season 23 of The Bachelor. After the show aired, Underwood allegedly “placed a tracker on her car, sent her and her friends anonymous threatening texts, and was even seen standing outside her window extremely late in the night, resulting in her brother attempting to de-escalate the situation.”

“Cassie is a victim of Colton’s abuse, and he does not deserve a platform in any way,” the petition reads. “Regardless of his sexuality, Colton should not be given a platform as a result of his abusive, manipulative, and dangerous behavior.”

Randolph filed a restraining order against Underwood last September, although it was later lifted after the pair were able to resolve their disputes privately. The petition also includes a link to the relevant court records, which describe the behaviors listed in the petition in detail.

The documents allege that Underwood “admitted to his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend…that he goes on multiple walks a day to Ms. Randolph’s apartment building” and that he had harassed and threatened her verbally following a visit from a friend. Attachments include screenshots of Underwood’s many texts to Randolph and to her friends and family, as well as pictures of the alleged tracking device Underwood placed in Randolph’s car.

Underwood and Randolph’s relationship lasted just over a year, beginning when he gave Randolph the final rose on the long-running reality competition series in March 2019 and ending in now-deleted breakup posts on Instagram in May 2020, according to Us Weekly.

Despite his history of alleged abuse, former contestants on the Bachelor franchise have expressed support for Underwood following his sit-down with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts. Supporters include former host Chris Harrison, who recently announced he will not host the next season of the show following allegations of on-set racism, and Hannah Brown, who initially appeared as The Bachelorette during the spinoff’s 15th cycle before coming in seventh during Underwood’s season.

“Sending you support every step of the way as you continue to embark on your self-discovery journey,” Brown said in an Instagram story.

For his part, Underwood apologized to Randolph on Good Morning America. “I’m sorry for the pain and emotional stress I caused,” he told Roberts last Monday. “I wish it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I wish that I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else.”

While thanking people for their “kind comments and messages,” Randolph said following the segment’s airing that she is taking a week off from her weekly YouTube channel, per Cosmopolitan magazine.

Netflix has not responded to calls to pull the plug on Colton Underwood’s as-yet-untitled series, but these are not the first criticisms aimed at the reality star after his coming out. Former ’NSync member Lance Bass, who famously revealed his sexuality on the cover of People magazine in 2006, predicted backlash if people perceive Underwood as “monetizing the experience” of coming out. In an interview with the reality show podcast The Ben & Ashley I. Almost Famous, Bass instructed Underwood to “sit back, listen, and learn” from the controversy.

“That’s all you need to do right now, is just listen to the community, listen to everyone around you,” he said last week. “Educate yourself and then you’ll naturally find where you belong in this community.”

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