Bachelor star Clayton Echard begins his journey to find love on Monday, January 3, and there are already so many questions about his finale. Does Clayton get engaged? Is he currently single or taken? The answers are below!
Caution: Season 26 spoilers are below. Do not keep reading if you don’t want to know what happens.
It’s still unclear if Clayton, 28, gets engaged or pops the question, but his final three contestants are Susie Evans, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia, according to Reality Steve.
The Missouri native definitely has his pick of great women. Rachel, 25, is a flight instructor. Unsurprisingly, she loves to travel and is looking for a partner who is “playful, passionate, and spontaneous,” according to her ABC bio.
As for Gabby, the 30-year-old Colorado native made headlines long before the season because she previously dated Bachelor Nation alums Blake Horstmann and Dean Unglert. Both guys were romantically linked to the contestant long before they were in the reality TV franchise.
Besides being an ICU nurse, Gabby has also been a Denver Broncos cheerleader since 2016 and was the first female and NFL cheerleader in history to receive the Pop Warner Humanitarian Award in 2021, which is usually given to football players.
Not to be outdone, Susie, 28, is a professional wedding videographer from Virginia Beach, and her ultimate dream is to become a documentary filmmaker, her ABC bio reads. She previously held the title as Miss Virginia in 2020.
Clayton definitely has his work cut out for him, and to add to the drama, the former football player admits in upcoming teasers that he slept with at least two of his finalists.
Although the leading man had some hiccups along the way, he revealed on Good Morning America on December 1 that he “did find love” during season 26.
“I was a little skeptical going into the whole journey, but I’m so pleasantly surprised that things worked out much different than I thought,” the former contestant from Michelle Young’s season said. “Again, I’m just so excited to watch it back and have everyone else watch it as well.”
Heading into season 26, Clayton admitted he had “a checklist of sorts” when looking for his future wife.
“I was looking for somebody that was funny, intelligent, driven, put forth effort and so I figured, ‘OK, that’s a good list and hopefully I’ll find that,’” he explained. “Well, what I found was very quickly the women blew my expectations out of the water. They brought all of that and so much more, so the expectations continued to rise, and I realized that, ultimately, I was going to find everything that I wanted and so much more.”