Clare Crawley / Instagram

'The Bachelorette' alum Clare Crawley: Dale Moss brought out the worst in me

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/11/2023

The Bachelorette alum Clare Crawley has opened up about how her relationship with ex-fiance Dale Moss was "crushing" and paralyzing.

"I was in a relationship that was not healthy for me. I mean, you know I can go on, and on, and on about this, but it crushed me," Clare, 42, shared during the Tuesday, August 8 episode of the "Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast."

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Clare -- who is now happily married to Ryan Dawkins -- admitted of her first engagement to her The Bachelorette 16 winner, "That relationship brought out the worst in me. It crushed me. It crushed my spirit. It crushed in so many ways who I was as a woman."

Clare didn't mention Dale by name, but she verified how this painful time in her life -- when her happiness "dipped low" -- was after starring on The Bachelorette in late 2020.

"It brought me down to a level that I didn't want to be at, that I questioned myself," Clare continued. "I thought I was asking for too much, I thought I was not a good communicator. All these things."

Clare said she thought she knew who she was at that point, and that she was strong, but that apparently wasn't the case.

"I found myself crying day after day after day, feeling so low and begging -- reverting to old habits of begging somebody for their love, for the simplest thing," Clare said.

"I was lost after that... It paralyzed me temporarily, especially because the very last day that I saw him, that I talked to him, was the day I was told I was going to have to go say goodbye to my mother, was really, really sick then."

Clare's mother suffers from dementia and was put into hospice care around that time.

"He basically said, 'That's not my problem.' And I begged him to please not leave me in that moment," Clare recalled.

"It got me down for a moment, but looking at it -- literally sitting there -- I was going, 'Why am I begging this man to have human decency? Why am I begging this man to care? This is not what a real man does.' I don't even care, not even a real man but a real human."

Clare suggested that Dale was not genuine or sincere, nor did he allegedly love her.

"That's not love. Somebody who loves you, even as a friend, doesn't do that type of stuff to you and leave you in a moment where you're so desperate and so low and struggling," Clare insisted.

"I don't even want to allow anybody in my life who would leave me in a moment like that. So I was in bed for a while, but truthfully -- and it's so weird to say this -- but I had to convince myself to walk around the block for 10 minutes."

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Clare reiterated how she was "very low" and "depressed" at that time, adding, "I felt the lowest you could feel with everything combined."

Clare and Dale then broke up in September 2021, although they didn't publicly announce the news until one month later.

(Dale's representative told Us Weekly in October 2021 that Dale had planned to fly to Sacramento to visit with Clare and his mother when her conditioned worsened -- after he appeared at an event with The Bachelorette alum Tyler Cameron -- but Clare had already blocked Dale's phone number and made it known he wasn't welcome).

But Clare found herself again after the breakup, and she became the same Clare she had been before starring on The Bachelorette. As fans recall, Clare even put Juan Pablo Galavis in his place on The Bachelor's eighteenth season.

"Before the show, I had it together. I was 'strong Clare,'' Clare confirmed.

Clare went on to call her romance with Dale "tumultuous" and "awful" overall, but she said that she prides herself on being resilient.

"I would never, in a million years, let a man bring me down that low again, or keep me that low," Clare shared.

"So I focused on rebuilding myself, and I brought myself back to who I was. And then I came back even stronger on the tail end."

Following her split from Dale, Clare began dating Ryan, the CEO of Mascot Sports, in late 2021.

The pair went Instagram official in September 2022, and then Ryan proposed marriage to Clare less than one month later on October 2022 in Las Vegas, NV.

Clare and Ryan got married in February 2023 and then moved into a new house together two months later. They're now expecting their first child, a baby girl, via surrogate. Clare also stepped in as a stepmom to Ryan's kids from a previous relationship.

Clare gushed on Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti's podcast how she's so "grateful" for her husband.

"He's so good to me, and is there in the darkest, deepest moments," Clare said, getting a bit choked up.

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Dale, meanwhile, has been dating home designer Galey Alix for more than a year.

"I think with anyone else's relationship, you know, that's their relationship," Dale told Us in February, wishing Clare and Ryan well.

"I'm solely focused on mine, but again, I wish nothing but the best. Love is a beautiful thing and I think it's great when anyone finds that."

Multiple sources previously described Dale as a "fame-seeker" and partyboy in New York City while Clare had been very clear from the start about her intentions to get married, settle down and have children in the near future.

Reports swirled at the time of Clare and Dale's breakup that the former NFL player had cheated on The Bachelorette alum, although Dale firmly denied the cheating allegations.

Clare has thrown major shade at Dale over the years. She ultimately thought he was fake and had put on a performance during their relationship so he could achieve fame and boost his acting and modeling career.

Clare told Jana Kramer in an October 2021 episode of the "Whine Down" podcast her "biggest regret" from The Bachelorette is "trusting a man," People reported.

Not only was Clare dealing with a broken heart and her mother's health crisis in Fall 2021, but she was also still recovering from having her breast implants removed.

"There was a lot on my plate... It all came crashing down at once," Clare noted on "Whine Down."

Clare also said it was "painful" that she and Dale never talked things out or found closure at the end of their hot-and-cold romance.

"The one that gets me is, how do you say goodbye to somebody you never wanted to walk away from?" Clare reportedly said through tears at the time.

"Like I would have never walked... You're having to say goodbye to somebody you don't want to be saying goodbye to, you have to walk away from somebody you don't want to walk away from. It's hard, it's painful."

Clare also appeared on Season 1 and Season 2 of Bachelor in Paradise prior to her The Bachelorette stint.