You know how Chris Harrison promises that every season of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette will be "the most dramatic that we’ve ever seen?" It’s likely that his predictions will, for the first time ever, actually be accurate as Clare Crawley steps into the spotlight as the season 16 lead. But for some reason, the franchise seems to be downplaying the obvious chaos that unfolded during production. A new teaser for Clare's turn as the Bachelorette has just been released, and it is uncharacteristically boring, especially in light of everything that we know about this season of the show.
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The first official teaser for season 16 reminds Bachelor Nation why Clare was handpicked to be the Bachelorette in the first place. In her first appearance in the franchise during Juan Pablo's horrific eleventh season, Clare made her mark for being one of the few women to challenge him.
"I've been down this road before," Clare says in a flashback, shown stopping Juan Pablo right before he hugs her. "I want respect." Cue Aretha Franklin's iconic anthem.
To the unassuming first time viewer, the teaser might be perfectly fine and even intriguing, but any plugged-in Bachelor fan knows that being dumped by Juan Pablo on TV is the least interesting thing to happen to Clare on this show — her season is a million times more interesting.
Clare's season of The Bachelorette marks the show's first quarantine edition, with the Sacramento hairdresser and her 25 boyfriends looking for love within the confines of a La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California. As if things weren't already strange enough, Clare's journey for love ended much quicker than production expected after she almost immediately hit it off with ex-NFL player Dale Moss. After a few short weeks, Clare reportedly let the crew know that she had found her person, handing Dale her final rose and leaving the other men shit out of luck.
Knowing that they couldn't possibly air a two-week season, the Bachelorette crew recruited Tayshia Adams (who also happened to be a fan favorite for Clare's position) to step in and be wooed by the remaining contestants. Given the fact that many of the men had already connected with Clare — though obviously not that deeply since she ditched them for Dale just weeks into the process — things at the La Quinta Resort were allegedly pretty rocky at first, but the cast and crew managed to get a full season out of it.
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As all of this drama went down, even wilder reports were coming out of the resort left and right: Hannah Ann Sluss and Becca Kufrin were said to be joining Tayshia as a sort of Bachelorette Trinity, Chris Harrison had been replaced by JoJo Fletcher, and so many Bachelor alum were also camped out at the resort that fans began suspecting that they were filming Bachelor in Paradise or even bringing back Bachelor Pad.
Suffice to say, the upcoming season of the popular dating series could very well be the most interesting iteration of The Bachelor(ette) that we've seen in years. So riddle me this: why is ABC still talking about Juan Pablo when it could be teasing the tea? This new trailer is a step up from the uncomfortable promo image of Clare that the show shared last week, but it's time to stop beating around the bush — give us the drama already!
All of the Bachelorette tea will be spilled when season 16 finally airs on ABC on Tuesday, October 13.