The Mercury News

Clayton Echard will be next ‘Bachelor’

- By Karu F. Daniels The St. Louis PostDispat­ch contribute­d to this report.

“Claynos” will live to see another day — and another show.

Clayton Echard will be the man of the hour (or two) for the upcoming season of “The Bachelor.”

The former NFL player and contestant of the current season of “The Bacheloret­te” has been tapped to be the object of affection for the 26th season of the popular ABC dating competitio­n.

Nicknamed “Claynos” by his friends in the house due partly to his sculpted physique, Echard made it to Michelle Young’s top eight suitors before getting eliminated on the 18th season of “The Bacheloret­te.”

“I just wanna find love so badly. And have a family. And start that chapter of my life,” he said during his emotional exit last week.

“I want it more than anything else. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get that, whatever it takes,” Echard said in what the network described as “one of the most emotional and heart-wrenching moments in ‘Bachelor’ history.”

According to ABC, he had the perfect example of what marriage and love can be since his parents have been married for 29 years, and their relationsh­ip is precisely the kind he so desperatel­y wants for himself.

A first look at the new season was unveiled on Tuesday night’s episode of “The Bacheloret­te.”

During a Wednesday appearance on “Good Morning America,” he revealed that his run as the Bachelor was a success.

“I did find love,” he said about the season, which has presumably already wrapped production. “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. Again, I’m just so excited to watch it back and have everyone else watch it as well.”

Both “The Bachelor” and “The Bacheloret­te” are structured to end with a proposal of marriage, though sometimes no proposal is made. In the 17 completed seasons of “The Bacheloret­te,” three of the couples have married — though one couple later divorced — and another is engaged.

 ?? SPENCER PLATT — GETTY IMAGES ?? ABC has announced that Clayton Echard will be the “Bachelor” in the upcoming season of the series.
SPENCER PLATT — GETTY IMAGES ABC has announced that Clayton Echard will be the “Bachelor” in the upcoming season of the series.

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