Everything you need to know about Bachelorette Clare Crawley
Here’s everything you need to know about Clare Crawley before Tuesday’s “Bachelorette” premiere.
She’s the oldest Bachelorette yet.
In 15 seasons of “The Bachelorette,” the lead’s average age is 27, and the show has only twice featured a woman in her 30s. With age comes more life experience and self-confidence, Crawley posits. “I have learned and taught myself how to create my own happiness, so I don’t need a man for happiness,” she told former Bachelor contestant Olivia Caridi on her “Mouthing Off” podcast.
She has been through a lot, too: Her dad died of brain cancer when she was 23. On Galavis’s season of “The Bachelor,” Crawley mentions a DVD her dad made for her future husband to watch. Her mother, Lilia, has Alzheimer’s and dementia, leading to many tough days where Crawley has said she “wanted to just crumble.” In those moments, Crawley’s sisters have lifted her up.
Her personal experience with loss and hardship has the potential to spark deep and meaningful conversations with contestants, because they’re always expected to open up about their own brushes with tragedy or life not going as planned.
She’s open about what she wants — and doesn’t want.
When Crawley got out of the limo to meet Galavis for the first time, she wore a fake belly (we’re guessing it was a pillow) as a playful way of telling Galavis, a single father, that she was ready and eager to have children of her own. He seemed to find it charming.
However, as the season unfolded, Galavis seemed to be more interested in the physical aspect of their relationship than anything else — and Crawley wasn’t having it. On one of their final dates, the couple shared a romantic helicopter ride, and in a rare moment without cameras around, he said something about how they didn’t know each other very well, Crawley later told producers, and “that he loved hooking up with me.”
Later, when Galavis told Crawley she wasn’t his final pick, she let him have it, famously telling him that, after “what you just made me go through, I would never want my children having a father like you.” Viewers can expect Crawley not to hold back if she senses someone is just there for their music career or to snap up Instagram sponsorships.
Past Bachelorettes love her for her honesty.
Other Bachelorettes still refer to her dismissal of Galavis as incredibly empowering. “She was my hero when she stood up to Juan Pablo,” Kaitlyn Bristowe, Bachelorette from the 2015 season, said of that finale during a recent TV special highlighting Galavis’s season.
“She reminds me of an edgy Disney princess,” Bristowe added, noting Crawley’s firm yet hopeful nature. “If she doesn’t [find someone], I’ll be her girlfriend, because I have a girl crush on her.”
DeAnna Pappas, star of the 2008 season of “The Bachelorette,” told Harrison she was “screaming for joy when Clare was announced to be the Bachelorette,” adding that “she is going to know exactly what she wants.”
Her season will indeed be unlike any other we’ve seen before.
Sure, Harrison says that every season. But it’s true: For starters, the filming of Crawley’s season was delayed several months because of the pandemic, from March to July. And it looks a lot different. It won’t open at the Bachelor mansion in Agoura Hills, Calif., and there will be no domestic or international travel, Harrison told Entertainment Tonight last month.
Instead, the cast and crew created one big pandemic bubble at the La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs, Calif., and all of the dates will take place there. Which also means Crawley got to bring her dogs with her!
Many of “The Bachelorette” hallmarks will remain: The men will still arrive on Night 1 in limos, and don’t worry, the resort has dozens of pools and hot tubs. But what will hometowns be like? Will they be happening over Zoom? We have so many questions.
Crawley might not be in the spotlight the entire time.
There have been many rumors about this season and very little in the way of official confirmation from Harrison or ABC. When asked recently about the reports that this season features two leading women — Crawley and Tayshia Adams, one of the finalists on Colton Underwood’s 2019 season of “The Bachelor” — Harrison would only say of Adams: “She’s not not the Bachelorette.” So coy of you, Chris.
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