Clare Crawley was chosen to be the leading woman on Season 16 of The Bachelorette, but things didn’t go quite as the franchise had planned.
While everything started out like normal, as the first few weeks went along, Clare connected with contestant, Dale Moss, and couldn’t look past her strong feelings for him. As the host then, Chris Harrison basically gave her an ultimatum. Clare chose Dale, and he proposed to her just a few weeks into the show.
Meanwhile, Matt James, who was supposed to be a contestant on Clare’s season, was known already as a best friend of Tyler Cameron, who had been on Hannah Brown’s season previously.
However, due to the worldwide pandemic, Clare’s season was put off to a later time. During that break, the Bachelor franchise named Matt James as the next Bachelor, before he had ever appeared on a franchise show before. This made history, and also made Clare upset.
Clare Crawley had claimed Matt James was on the show for the wrong reasons
As Clare went on a rant on Twitter, claiming that Matt was doing cameos and interviews before appearing on her season, and he was in it for the wrong reasons.
While Matt never responded to Clare’s tweet at the time, he has just recently come out about the situation in his new book, First Impressions.
In his book, Matt says he was making money for charity and that he included the story in his book because it was part of his journey, and he may have never been named The Bachelor had none of that ever happened.
After hearing his response, Clare clapped back.
Clare has fired back to Matt finally speaking out
When @backtolovedoc wrote on their Instagram page, “Matt spoke his truth he was on cameo to make $ for a charity. Clare was quick to assume men were going to hurt her and do her wrong. She said there were multiple men she was worried about. She was being reactionary and said so.”
Clare responded to that claim and declared herself, “TRUST me. I wasn’t quick to assume anything – contractually I had A LOT that I couldn’t speak on. Standby though.”
On the @bachelor_dishes_the_dirt Instagram page, they have captioned what everyone else in Bachelor Nation is thinking: “I am intrigued by Clare Crawley responding ‘Standby’ on my post… [red rose, red heart, red rose].”
They also put “Whom do you believe????” So, Bachelor fans… Are you Team Matt or Team Clare on this one?
The Bachelorette premieres Monday, July 11th, on ABC.