Clayton Echard admitted to feeling like “a punching bag” following his time on The Bachelor.
“I’m not out here instigating this or looking for trouble,” Echard, 31, said during the Thursday, April 17, episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast, before breaking down his past scandals in the public eye.
“The cheating scandal I had, that was some random girl in New York I never met,” he explained, referring to an April 2022 TikTok that went viral. (In the video, a social media user claimed she hooked up with Echard, who was in a relationship with Susie Evans at the time. It turns out Echard wasn’t even in NYC and the woman actually met a lookalike.)
“I didn’t instigate that one. That one came on to me,” Echard continued. “The paternity scandal. “I mean, OK, I hooked up with a girl, but nobody expects it to go to that extent.”
Echard was involved in a lengthy paternity scandal after meeting a woman named Laura Owens, who claimed to be pregnant with the former Bachelor star’s twins. He denied having full-on sexual intercourse with Owens and alleged that she made similar claims against other men in the past. The year-long drama came to an end in June 2024 when a court sided with Echard.
Thursday’s podcast episode then featured Echard getting into more recent drama, addressing his ongoing feud with fellow Bachelor Nation alum Gabby Windey.
“Here I am doing my thing. You can hate it or love it,” he said. “I understand I’m not the greatest dancer. I’m very aware of, like, how good of a dancer I actually am in comparison to legit dancers, which is also something I want to highlight is people like, ‘He’s not a good dancer.’ I’m like compared to who? I have absolutely improved from the first day that I started dancing.”
Earlier this month Windey, 34, referred to Echard as a “toe looking ass” — referring to his viral dancing videos — while appearing on the “Las Culturistas” podcast.
“The reason why I’m a punching bag is because I wasn’t punching back,” Echard said on Thursday. “I think all this time, I just basically took it and then sat here and didn’t do anything about it. I recently came to a place where I said, I’m not going to just take this bulls*** anymore. I’m going to stand up for myself.”
Echard confirmed that he’s heard “way worse” than what Windey said about him but decided to clap back because of “the principle” of the situation.
“I am no longer going to allow people to bash me,” he continued. “I’m going to stand up for myself and there’s going to be some repercussions for you attacking me.”
