Clayton Echard is the first to admit he got wrapped up in “comparison culture” within Bachelor Nation.
“It’s hard because you try to avoid it, but I get compared to every Bachelor,” Echard, 31, said on the Monday, April 7, episode of iHeartRadio’s “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. “Every season’s like, ‘This guy’s better than him.’ My sense of self for a while kept getting rocked, especially Joey [Graziadei].”
According to Echard, Graziadei, 29, was “the most beloved Bachelor” in recent history and he couldn’t help but see fans praising his journey to find love.
“I see online, ‘We love Joey. He’s so much better than Clayton,’ and I started to even find myself being envious of him,” Echard told hosts Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt. “I had to basically check myself and say it’s not his fault that he’s in the position that he’s in.”
In 2022, Echard went on a search for love during season 26 of The Bachelor. While he picked Susie Evans as the winner, the pair announced their breakup after just a few months of dating.
As for Graziadei, he was The Bachelor lead for season 28 and found love with Kelsey Anderson. Nearly a year after viewers watched the pair get engaged, they remain together.
“I’ve briefly interacted with him and he seems like a nice guy,” Echard explained of Graziadei. “It’s hard because you’re in this environment where there’s been [around] 28 other Bachelors, and you want to just be able to be yourself and not focus on anything else. But once we’re in it, you’re never let go from it.”
Although it’s been more than two years since Echard appeared as The Bachelor, he still finds himself making headlines with some of his exes. (He’s currently in a feud with ex Gabby Windey after she criticized his dancing videos on social media.)
At the same time, he tries to find the positives of his experience trying to find love on TV.
“I don’t hate this show. I hated the producers at one point for sure, but then I realized they’re not monsters. They have to create an entertaining TV show,” he explained. “And also, you didn’t have a body double. You were in there doing all those things.”
Echard said he didn’t come to that realization until about six months ago. Now, he has a better mindset of what producers can do for contestants.
“There’s a lot of people when they come off TV that want to take credit for all the good but then they want to say, ‘No, the producers made me do that,’” he shared. “But the producers maybe also influenced you to do those good things too.”
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