Each season Chris Harrison boasts that viewers are in for “the most dramatic season ever.” This time, he might be right. After pushing the production of The Bachelorette back due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, filming resumed only for Clare Crawley to quit two weeks later. Now, reports are saying that Tayshia Adams has replaced Crawley, making her the second Black Bachelorette in the history of the show.
Clare Crawley replaced with Tayshia Adams
Pushing back filming gave Crawley and her contestants a chance to get to know each other before meeting at the Bachelor mansion.
“You can kind of tell people’s lifestyles like from Instagram Stories, and I see some that I’m like, ‘That’s not really my vibe,’ and others where I look at them and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s hot. I can’t wait to meet that guy. I hope he’s on the season,’” she said on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast.
While on hiatus, Crawley began talking to football player Dale Moss. The two got close quite quickly.
“One of her potential guys found a way to get in touch with her and they began talking,” a 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.”
Luckily, Adams had been on the shortlist to be the Bachelorette before Crawley was chosen so she had already been interviewed for the position and was ready to step in.
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Tayshia Adams speaks for the first time since being cast
While all of this drama with The Bachelorette has been happening, the franchise has been airing The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever! which recaps old seasons of the show. Adams appeared on Monday night’s episode which recapped Nick Viall’s season.
While on the show, she spoke about how seeing Rachel Lindsay in the franchise meant a lot to her.
“I’m from Orange County, California, so this is my world,” she said while speaking to Harrison and Bachelor alum Natasha Parker. “And what I mean by that is I am very used to being the minority. So, seeing someone on TV have such a strong role and identify with me meant so much.”
Parker responded saying that seeing Lindsay in the role of Bachelorette made her feel comfortable going on the show.
“I think that’s what encouraged me to go on it, because she was so true and authentic to herself, and at the end of the day, she got her person,” Adams continued. “She is … married now, and she got her fairy-tale ending, and that’s what I wanted. So, she gave us hope.”
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Adams’ appearance on last night’s episode may have been filmed earlier this summer, before she was recast as the Bachelorette, but even so, the foreshadowing in her comments is almost too freaky to be a coincidence.
Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette is set to premiere on Oct. 13 though Adams has not officially appeared in any of the advertisements for the season.