Exclusive Interview
‘Perfect Match’: Did Ollie Sutherland Know Clayton Echard & Rachel Recchia Were Exes? He Spills
Tell us you weren’t tuned into Bachelor Nation circa 2022 without telling us you weren’t tuned into Bachelor Nation circa 2022…
During Perfect Match Season 3, The Bachelor‘s Clayton Echard shocked viewers everywhere by asking Rachel Recchia to match with him, after breaking up with her not once, but twice already throughout his tenure on reality TV. Even more shocking? Rachel actually said yes.
While their reconciliation certainly gave us deja vu, the Perfect Match couple’s shock factor was short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, Clayton went in for breakup #3, claiming his intuition had set in and made a misguided decision that he originally thought was fate.
Leading up to Perfect Match Season 3, Swooon sat down with the stars of the show to discuss Clayton’s decision to get back together with Rachel, only to break things off (again) the next day. According to Clayton, who joined the competition on Day 1, Rachel’s post-date entrance with Freddie Powell (Love Is Blind: UK) was unexpected, to say the least. He recalled, “We were sitting by the fire, I remember.”
At the time, he thought the rest of the cast had set him up, knowingly bringing in his ex. “[It was] the one time we sat by the fire, and also I’m right by the front door.” When Rachel came in, Clayton remembered, “I was shocked, of course. I know I’m outside of the Netflix universe, so what are the chances that someone else from my world would be here, let alone my ex?” From then on, “It got serious really quickly.”
Netflix
Ollie Sutherland (Love Is Blind: UK), who originally brought Rachel into the competition while he was in the boardroom with AD Smith (Love Is Blind), shared, “I didn’t know it was your ex.”
“I put [Freddie] on the date with her,” Ollie told Clayton. “I didn’t know it was your ex. I just thought if it didn’t work out with them, maybe you would hit it off because you’re both from the same franchise. I didn’t know you knew each other already.”
Even Freddie hadn’t realized that Rachel had dated someone else in the competition. As he put it, “It took a little bit of chat on the date to realize ‘Oh this is Clayton’s ex.'”
Once Rachel was in the house, it was clear that Freddie, who was currently matched with Madison Errichiello, was not the match for her. When Clayton swooped in, Rachel assumed he wanted to clear the air with her regarding their Bachelor history. Instead, he confessed, “I believe everything happens for a reason. It’s like the screensaver on my phone,” before choking up their reconnection to fate.
For a moment, it seemed like a Bachelor Nation second-chance romance was taking place before our eyes. However, sometime between Clayton letting Rachel know he had “kept tabs” on her over the years and the infamous kissing challenge, he realized he had made a mistake.
Citing his intuition, Clayton broke things off with Rachel the moment he knew that their reconciliation had been a mistake and sent her on a date with someone new. Looking back at his decision to match with Rachel and then break things off in such quick succession, Clayton admitted, “Half of the audience, I think, will understand and will respect what I did, and the other half will be pretty angry.”
Do you think Clayton made the right choice? Comment below with your take on Clayton’s Perfect Match run so far.
Perfect Match, Season 3, Episodes 1-6, Streaming Now, Netflix
Perfect Match, Season 3, Episodes 7-9, August 8, Netflix
Perfect Match, Season 3, Episodes 10, August 15, Netflix
