Clayton Echard Could End Up With No One On The Bachelor

Before Clayton Echard’s Bachelor season premiered, he confirmed on Good Morning America that he found love. “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,” he said.

What the 28-year-old Missouri native neglected to mention is that he found love with three different women. Subsequent previews for the show have shown him confessing that he’s in love with all three of his finalists, as well as that he was intimate with at least two. This causes widespread drama among the cast — and may even mean Clayton winds up leaving The Bachelor single. “You can’t be in love with three people. You cannot,” one woman says in a voiceover. “I’ve never felt pain like this before.”

Later, Clayton explains the situation to his parents, adding that none of the women want to be there anymore. “It’s over. I don’t know how I can go forward,” Clayton says as footage of him walking outside alone plays. His parents are less than sympathetic. “They have a right to be upset,” Clayton’s dad tells him. “You put yourself in this situation. You screwed the pooch, in my opinion.”

Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss has added further fuel to the idea that Clayton ends up alone — or at least, that the season doesn’t wrap up neatly. “This season’s finale of #TheBachelorABC is totally spoiler-proof. No one knows how it will end, cuz it ain’t over til it’s over! And it ain’t over…” he tweeted on Feb. 21.

Former Bachelor Peter Weber shared a similar prediction in an interview with Us Weekly. “My prediction is — and I hate to say — that he ends up with no one and that it was supposed to be Rachel,” the 30-year-old pilot said. “[I think] she loses it. And then who knows if they all walk away or how it ends—maybe he walks away because it was mainly Rachel. I’m hoping that’s not the case, but that’s how I kind of think it ends.”

New host Jesse Palmer also reportedly said multiple times during the “Women Tell All” taping that even he doesn’t know “how the journey ends,” according to Reality Steve. Because Jesse was at the finale taping in Iceland, he would have to know the winner’s identity, unless a proposal never took place. That could also be why — for the first time in recent memory — even Reality Steve has yet to figure out Clayton’s winner, with the blogger posting that it’s possible that “there was no finality in Iceland.”

Despite a relatively low success rate for Bachelor Nation couples, Clayton said he went into the show with a positive attitude. “I try not to compare myself to others. I’m my own person and with that I’m unique and my journey is unique and just because, maybe, it doesn’t work out with these six other couples,” he recently explained to E! News. “I’m not going to let it impact me and say, ‘Well, I’m doomed; it’s not going to work for me.’ I’m obviously aware of it. I’ve seen the success rate of the people that end up with their person long term. But again, I am who I am, and I believe I can make it work.”

Only time will tell if he was right.