As the pair made clear in a joint statement a few weeks ago, Clayton Echard and Susie Evans will not be spending the rest of their lives together.
Following a challenging journey on the latest season of The Bachelor, Echard and Evans announced their split in late September.
In a recent podcast appearance, however, Echard got real, raw and personal, telling listeners that Evans actually saved his life just a few months ago.
At one point, he considered suicide.
“I had no business being the Bachelor with the person that I was then,” Clayton admitted on Tuesday while a guest on the Off the Vine podcast, adding in a bit more detail:
“The person I was now would have handled things 100 times better.”
This is likely a reference to the way Echard earned a great deal of backlash after sleeping with Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia… only to them dump both women at the same time once he learned he still had a shot with Evans.
Gabby and Rachel were later named co-leads on The Bachelorette, while Echard and Evans agreed to start dating after cameras stopped rolling.
During this podcast appearance, Clayton delved into the criticism that came his way after his run as The Bachelor — and how it seriously messed with his head.
“I was trying to figure out what my next step was [and] I started questioning who I was because of all the negativity,” Clayton explained on air.
“I started to believe some of what was being said about me.
“And I now look back at it and realize, like, I couldn’t be that stable, secure man that I needed to be to really be able to give my all in a relationship.”
It sounds as if Echard really has been struggling and, as a result, simply could not hold up his end of a serious relationship.
Thankfully, he and Susie remain on strong terms.
And, thankfully, Evans was there for Clayton when he needed her the most.
“I do think it all happens for a reason,” he continued on the podcast.
“I think I wouldn’t have been able to get through what I got through with anybody other than Susie. She was the only person that was going to help me see what I saw.
“And she was the only person that was going to keep me from going off the rails and doing something extremely drastic because I had very dark thoughts from the show — moments where I said, you know, ‘It’d be better off if I just ended things.’
“And the fact that I had her with me as I was thinking that — I’m like, ‘What if I didn’t have her?’ You know, ‘Where would I have been then?’”
Wow, huh?
You never really know what someone is going through, do you?
As for whether or not Clayton could see himself trying again with Evans?
“We’re not going to say there’s not the possibility,” he said this week.
“But there’s still a lot of pain that came from the entire situation itself that, I think, we can both say we are kind of far off from healing from right now.
“We need more time. I don’t know if that’s three, six months, a year, two years, whatever, but like, the damage is still too fresh.”
a