The much-anticipated and highly-hyped premiere of
The Bachelorette with Clare Crawley on Tuesday was truly something else. On top of all
the drama and throw-downs between the men within the first few hours of meeting Clare, all of it went down in the middle of a pandemic which shut down production for three months. Even though the teaser trailers for the rest of the season assure us that this will be unlike any other
Bachelorette season we’ve seen before, and we don’t doubt it, it’s already just so very strange.Former
Bachelor and
Bachelor in Paradise contestant Tayshia Adams had some thoughts on what she saw Tuesday night for her new podcast
Click Bait; that she hosts with other Bachelor Nation stars Hannah Ann Sluss and Joe Amabile. Although speculation and rumours have abounded for months that Tayshia takes over mid-season for Clare, Tayshia didn’t say a blessed thing about that. Instead, she put on her best poker face and chose instead to speak about the weirdness of filming a show with isolation and health safety protocols.
“I thought it was so interesting how many people and how many times they referenced, like, 'This is the first time I hugged somebody in, like, six months or, like, holding hands even,’ you know what I mean?" Adams said in conversation with Hannah Ann and Joe.[video_embed id='2055250']RELATED: Clare Crawley is moving quicky on the road to finding love[/video_embed]"It's just, that's just the way of the world lately, and I couldn't imagine having that much freedom because we've been having to put masks on every single day, and so to be able to, like, walk around and date and kiss and hold and do all that stuff without a mask is kind of bizarre," she continued.Yeah, all that smooching and snogging in the first episode must have scared the bejeezus out of a few of them (that didn’t stop them though, obvi).Clare’s season of
The Bachelorette was supposed to start filming in March, but production was ground to a halt due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Production on the 16th season started up again mid-summer in an isolated area in California to ensure everyone’s safety. According to reports, Clare’s
mid-season departure was caused by her infatuation with one of the contestants (hello Dale!) before filming even began, and couldn’t give the other men a chance, at which point, Tayshia got the call.“One of her potential guys found a way to get in touch with her and they began talking," one source told
People. "By the time filming officially began, they were basically already in love. No one else stood a chance. It just became so obvious from her subsequent few dates that her heart wasn’t in it and she just wasn’t feeling it. Then she said she wanted out."Having first appeared on Colton Underwood's of
The Bachelor and later on
Bachelor in Paradise, the source says Tayshia was was brought in as a back-up. "Tayshia was game and ready to go.”Neither Clare nor Tayshia have publicly said a dang thing about this switch up. In fact, Clare has been nothing but a master
at evading the question. Neither
The Bachelorette nor ABC have included Tayshia in any of the promotional material for the season. But we have a feeling this “bizarre” season is about to get a lot more weird.[video_embed id='2049925']BEFORE YOU GO: 'Horse girl' from Alberta can gallop and jump just like a horse[/video_embed]
