The assumption at first was that the Season 26 Bachelor would come from Katie Thurston’s season.
ABC’s decision to air two seasons of The Bachelorette without a season of The Bachelor in between is what has thrown the whole process for a loop.
But after that came and went without any updates, viewers were halfway through the airing of Bachelor in Paradise Season 7 when news broke that we hadn’t even met the next Bachelor yet.
Filming for Michelle Young’s season has already wrapped, so it’s not as though Clayton Echard did anything wrong by speaking publicly, and with the way producers allegedly fell in love with him while filming The Bachelorette, I assume it’s clear he was there for “the right reasons.”