The Bachelor alum Clayton Echard has responded to a subtle jab Susie Evans apparently took at him.
While discussing Clayton’s odd 2024 paternity case during the January 22 episode of “The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast,” co-host Ben Higgins read Clayton a quote that Susie had made about the case, which a judge ultimately ruled was based on a false claim by a woman who could not prove she was ever even pregnant.
(At the time, an Arizona woman had claimed to be pregnant with Clayton’s twins as a result of a one-night stand, but Clayton argued that the woman had “fabricated her pregnancy” and they “never had sexual intercourse” to begin with).
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“I want to hear what you think of it. I want you to break it down for us,” Ben told Clayton, who had won the paternity case in June 2024.
“[Susie] said, ‘Listen, Clayton might be a lot of things, but he’s not a liar. And that meant a lot to me.'”
Ben asked Clayton for his thoughts on Susie’s quote — which she had made in support of Clayton during a November 2023 episode of “The Viall Files” podcast — and Clayton laughed.
“Oh, Susie,” Clayton muttered. “You know, I’m going to hold off on that.”
Despite his hesitation, Clayton did, in fact, speak on the subject.
“I think that there were reasons why [she] and I broke up and there was equal, you know, there’s no blame to be dispersed out, but there’s reasons why it didn’t work from my point of view with the way that she acted and vice versa,” Clayton explained to Ben and his co-host Ashley Iaconetti.
“I haven’t really been in agreeance with a few of the times that she’s made small comments that carry a lot more weight. I think that that direct quote was one of them. So, I wish Susie the best.”
Clayton gave Susie the benefit of the doubt by saying he didn’t necessarily think Susie’s quote was intended “in the way it was framed.”
“I also don’t think a few other things she said at some points, it felt like she was trying to make it seem like I was the whole reason that the relationship didn’t work,” Clayton vented.
“That’s the way I perceived it. I don’t know if she meant that or not, but of course if you’re bringing this up as a quote, you’ve got to wonder, ‘Why was it said that way?'”
Clayton slammed how Susie’s quote “perked people up” and received a lot of attention.
“You could have just said, ‘Clayton’s not a liar,'” The Bachelor’s Season 26 star lamented.
“Why did you say, ‘He might be many things?’ So I haven’t been in favor and I’ve told her that.”
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Clayton claimed Susie is “aware” that “some of the ways” in which she’s said things since their September 2022 split have rubbed him the wrong way.
“But it is what it is,” Clayton noted.
“She can respond to that accordingly [as to] what she meant. I never got an answer as far as what that meant for myself, but I just moved on from it and let it go.”
Clayton acknowledged how no one is perfect, and he added, “At some points, we all say things that in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have said, so I can forgive her for that — if there was a need for it.”
Clayton starred on Season 26 of The Bachelor, which was filming in late 2021 and aired on ABC in early 2022.
Clayton picked Susie as his final bachelorette; however, Susie rejected Clayton when the season’s Final Rose Ceremony was filmed in November 2021, saying she didn’t think he was her “person” after having learned he had slept with both Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia in the Fantasy Suites.
Clayton and Susie then reunited after filming ended and were dating when The Bachelor season’s After the Final Rose special aired on ABC in March 2022, but announced their split about six months later in September 2022.
Susie then moved to California and became friends with The Bachelorette alum Justin Glaze, whom she began dating in January 2024.
Susie and Justin announced their split in August 2024, but Susie recently revealed they are trying to work things out.
Clayton insisted on “Almost Famous” that it doesn’t bother him to see Susie with another guy.
“I didn’t really feel any type of way about it,” Clayton said of Susie and Justin’s Bachelor Nation romance.
“When Susie and I broke up, we knew it was never going to ever be a thing again… We were important in each other’s life to help each other get through a traumatic time, and she helped me grow as a person.”
Clayton acknowledged how his feelings for Susie eventually “subsided” after their breakup conversation.
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“It became very much just like, ‘Hey, you know what? We weren’t meant to be each other’s forever person,'” Clayton said.
“So I knew that that day would come whenever she would date somebody new, and so when I saw it, it was like, ‘Yeah, I mean, this day was coming. It was inevitable,’ and I didn’t really feel any type of way about it. I was like, ‘Okay, good for her.'”
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.