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Giving back.
Bachelor Nation met Zac Clark on Season 16 of “The Bachelorette,” where he shared his struggle with addiction and journey to sobriety with Tayshia Adams on-screen.
Since his time on the show, Zac has continued to share resources for addiction, mental health, and more through his company Release Recovery Addiction Treatment Center.
Zac celebrated 13 years of sobriety last year and just stopped by the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast and opened up about helping others in Bachelor Nation with their sobriety.
He told co-hosts Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt that while he hasn’t stayed super connected to the Bachelor Nation universe, he is so grateful for the experience and has met so many “beautiful people” because of his time on the show.
He said, “Just this morning, this guy called me to speak at his company’s event. And he just said, ‘My daughter saw you on “The Bachelorette” and she’s sober. She says you have a great story.’ So to this day, that is still the thing that people know about me from that experience, which is why I try to be loud and proud about the work we do.”
Zac also shared, “There have been multiple cases of people in the Bachelor world that have reached out to me confidentially and have asked me how I got sober, what I do to stay sober, and how my journey started. I feel like I’ve been able to be a resource for a lot of people that I haven’t and won’t share publicly, because that’s not my place. It’s their story to tell.”
Zac did, however, open up more about Rob, Grant Ellis’ dad, who we saw on his season of “The Bachelor.”
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Zac previously shared on social media that he and Rob work together at his recovery foundation and now he revealed more about their relationship.
The Bachelor Nation star shared that after going to rehab, Rob was at a treatment center in New Jersey that his foundation frequently works with.
Zac shared that someone at Rob’s treatment center connected them because of their ties to Bachelor Nation.
Zac revealed, “He reached out to me, man, and he was in a lot of pain. He was at a point in his life where he was having to move on from the environment he was in because he was well behind on payments for his sober living and so he filled out for a scholarship through the Release Recovery Foundation.”
He went on, “We were able to get him the ability to access some funds to pay for his sober living and get up to date with the payment. So the money you raised, Joe, when you run the marathon for us and Serena, when you always support Joe and come to our gala, like that, those funds went toward helping him.”
Zac shared that it didn’t matter to him that he was Grant’s dad, just that he was someone who needed help.
Eventually, Zac asked if Rob needed a job and it turned out that he did need a job and a place to live.
So he helped him get a job at Release Recovery and Zac shared that everyone there loves him.
He said, “Rob is a character and everyone loves him. We ended up giving him a job and now we’re kind of on this journey together, shoulder to shoulder. It’s been an amazing, amazing transformation to watch him become the man that he is today.”
We love hearing this story and seeing how Bachelor Nation helped these two make such an important connection.
For more, check out Zac’s full episode of “Bachelor Happy Hour” below.
