Clayton Echard and Susie Evans have revealed more details about the wild cheating scandal in which a TikToker had accused Clayton of being unfaithful, a claim which The Bachelor star was able to disprove.
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"I'm a [wedding] videographer. I was in California working and I just finished filming the ceremony of a wedding and I get all these tags and notifications to my phone," Susie, a Virginia Beach native, explained on Thursday's episode of the "Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation" podcast, according to Us Weekly.
"I open a couple and I see this video and everyone's, like, speculating, 'Oh, it's Clayton and Susie.' And there's a TikToker who made a video saying... the most recent Bachelor who's with his girl still, she hooked up with him the night before. And she's like, 'I feel so bad for the girl.'"
Sasha apparently thought Susie is Clayton's "fiancee" and so she felt Susie deserved to know the truth.
"I clicked my messages and I've got a message from her. And I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, like, there is no way.' Of course, in that moment, my stomach, like, dropped because I was just like, 'What?'" Susie explained, adding that she checked out Sasha's TikTok profile at the time out of curiosity.
"I just couldn't have even, like, fathomed Clayton of all people -- like, I just genuinely have so much trust in him as a good human being before anything else."
"And then I see a text from him. And he's like, 'Oh, my gosh, there's people speculating online, like, this is crazy.' And we FaceTime immediately... He's in his brother's apartment in Arizona. This is, like, the day after supposedly that she was with him."
Susie claimed that Sasha had attempted to relate to the wedding videographer in her initial DM.
"She's like, 'I was in a relationship just like yours... I was hurt and taken advantage of.' And I'm like, 'I'm not hurt or taken advantage of!'" Susie shared.
"Clayton is literally one of the most incredible people I've ever met and has great communication. He's transparent. He's so loyal and so honest."
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Susie said she was "kind" to Sasha "the whole time" despite the disturbing allegation, which Clayton's girlfriend apparently never really believed.
Once Sasha's cheating accusation made headlines, Clayton fired back and released proof, publicly, that he actually spent the weekend with his brother and was at Mountainside Fitness in Arizona at the time of the alleged hookup.
Sasha initially doubled down on her allegation claiming that Clayton's proof of his location wasn't real evidence, but then she reviewed security camera footage and ultimately determined a man had been pretending to be Clayton and she was therefore scammed by a Bachelor impersonator.
But Clayton said he recognized a TikTok user commenting on many of Sasha's posts.
"He recognized the name of somebody that was, like, heckling him all season," Susie revealed. "This just comes down to two people that probably didn't like Clayton."
Clayton joined Susie on "Talking It Out" and recalled asking Sasha to apologize once she realized she was wrong.
"While I wanted to, like, bury her in one aspect, I was like, 'You know what, she's still a human being and she still is, like, now under fire.' And Susie and I talked about, like, 'We don't want this girl to do anything extreme,'" Clayton said.
"So I just messaged her, I said, 'Delete your videos, and put out an apology, like, that's the best thing you can do.' And she did that... I don't want to question whether or not it was genuine... She took down the videos and moved on from it. And so I want to give her grace."
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"I was genuinely under the impression that I was with him," Sasha said, explaining how she and Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone reviewed camera footage and came to the conclusion some "weird" man was pretending to be the Season 26 The Bachelor star.
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Sasha admitted that she owed Clayton and Susie a public apology, while insisting that she never meant to cause any drama and never had any malicious intent.
"This guy truly convinced me that he was Clayton. He, again, introduced me to himself as Clayton. He told me he was on The Bachelor. He knew [Clayton]'s hometown, his birthday -- knew all these super weird facts that it just, obviously, in that moment, me not watching The Bachelor, knowing nothing about it, I believed him," Sasha recalled.
She added, "Super weird [that] someone's impersonating him in New York City, so look out for that."
Sasha also told Us Weekly earlier this week that this NYC man is taking advantage of women and his resemblance to Clayton is "scary."
Clayton and Susie told Bryan Abasolo and Mike Johnson on "Talking It Out" that this scandal led to some serious conversations about their relationship.
"It just led to conversations of like, 'How do we navigate this in the future?' And also just, like, coming down to pure trust," Susie said, adding that she trusts Clayton wholeheartedly.
"[He has] pure intentions and [a] genuine soul, that I would never ever, ever imagine this to happen."
The pair explained how their only issues seem to stem from outside influences and having a public romance.
"The only times that we fight or argue, it's never about, like, us. It's about the weird situations that we have been thrown into because of a public relationship," Susie explained.
"We did have some, like, just tough conversations for the future of like, 'What are our expectations for each other?'... This is, like, such a new territory. And like, we don't know who to lean on to navigate this stuff, so we have to lean on each other."
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Clayton also boasted about how well he and Susie overcome adversity.
"I think what we always come to is we always have an understanding of the other person, you know, [and] what their thoughts are... Susie from the jump in this situation was like, 'I want to give her grace,'" Clayton noted. "And originally, I was like, 'What? This girl deserves no grace!'"
When asked whether they feel pressure to show off their love on social media and prove to others they're happy, Clayton said, "The only people I care about making happy... is my family and friends."
Clayton noted how they appreciate support from fans and Bachelor Nation but those people are not going to "make or break whether or not this relationship works."
On The Bachelor's 26th season, Susie happened to be Clayton's third Fantasy Suite date of the week, and the pair mutually agreed she should leave the show in a tense and heated breakup discussion after she learned he had slept with both Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia.
Susie was upset about not being Clayton's one and only considering he had also professed his love to the two other women, and Clayton was angry Susie didn't seem willing to fight for and save their relationship.
Clayton therefore introduced both Gabby and Rachel to his family, which helped him determine that he only wanted to be with Susie, a "once-in-a-lifetime woman."
Clayton attempted to win Susie back, and she agreed to return to the show and make an appearance at the Final Rose Ceremony. However, she dumped the Bachelor instead of accepting his final rose, saying that he wasn't her person and they weren't meant to be.
However, Susie reached out to Clayton post-filming seeking some answers, and the pair reconciled and are now dating and in love.
Clayton and Susie realized that Susie had real-world boyfriend expectations while dating Clayton on the show and Clayton had fully adapted to the unique, unconventional and fast-paced environment of progressing multiple relationships simultaneously on The Bachelor.
After The Bachelor finale aired, Clayton moved to Virginia to be with Susie and give their romance a real shot. He had quit his job in medical sales and even sold his condo.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
