The 'Bachelor' alum reveals where his relationship stands with his ex.
Clayton Echard is setting the record straight on his relationship with Rachel Recchia. One month after the Bachelor exes reunited in a flirty TikTok, Clayton revealed what led to the video and how he and Rachel are doing today.
"We were there for a couple of days and just feeling the situation out," Clayton explained on The Ben and Ashley I. Almost Famous Podcast. "Day one when I came out of the airport and I first saw Rachel, I was like, 'Do I need to get ready to duck something?' But no, she was super sweet and so we were all having a good time."
Eventually, the exes began marveling over "how far we've come that we can sit in a room together and laugh and understand one another and we've made amends," and decided to "have some fun with this," Clayton said.
"The idea came up with a TikTok," he said. "I'm not the visionary, but I can usually add on to things here and there, so we started talking and said, 'This would be fun if we set this up this way,' so we did."
In the video, Michelle Young mouthed along to sound that asks, "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
"I would," Rachel answered, "but I think explaining it might give us both an aneurysm."
As Rachel mouthed along to her line, the camera zoomed out to show her sitting next to Clayton, who offered a smile and a shrug by way of explanation.
After they posted the video online, "it popped off and then all of the sudden I had to start answering to some things," Clayton said. For Clayton, though, "it just showed how far we've all come and how we're able to look past all the pain that had presented itself years prior."
"It was a fun moment," he said. "Of course people on the internet like to gas everything up and see if there's something more than what there is there, so of course all these questions came and followed."
Last month, Rachel discussed the TikTok on the same podcast, revealing she initially "had no idea what to expect" when she realized she would be reunited with Clayton.
"I think we knew we were gonna kind of be civil, but we were able to really actually have a good conversation and talk everything through as adults having both been through our own seasons," she said. "It's been really nice to see him as a friend now."
The pair's unlikely reunion was significant, as Clayton and Rachel didn't exactly end things on the best terms. During Clayton's season of The Bachelor, he confessed to sleeping with both Rachel and Gabby Windey, and told the women he was in love with both of them.
Afterwards, Rachel spoke out against Clayton during the live finale, stating, "I do not have feelings for him anymore. Watching him completely disrespect Gabby... I don't feel like it's possible for me to watch that back and feel like someone who'd act like that could actually love me."
Then, Rachel and Gabby were named co-leads of The Bachelorette, something Clayton openly supported. When their season premiered, though, it was full of digs at Clayton.
That all came amid Clayton's renewed romance with Susie Evans. Though the pair reconnected after Susie self-eliminated from Clayton's season, they called things off in September.
The same month that things ended between Clayton and Susie, the season finale of Rachel's season of The Bachelorette aired, and revealed that she and her final man, Tino Franco, had already split up after he cheated on her.
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