Exclusive Interview
‘Perfect Match’: Clayton Echard Details ‘Powerful’ Moment With Ex Rachel Recchia You Didn’t See
While his time on Perfect Match may have been short, Clayton Echard certainly made a splash as the first former Bachelor to enter the Netflix Reality Universe.
Upon entering the reality dating competition, Clayton formed a connection with fellow Netflix newbie, Siesta Key‘s Juliette Porter. However, their slow burn was quickly snubbed by the entrance of Clayton’s The Bachelor runner-up, former Bachelorette Rachel Recchia. However, the former footballer shocked Bachelor Nation and his housemates alike by matching with his ex, only to break things off the next day.
Heading into the Perfect Match finale, Swooon sat down with Clayton to discuss joining the Netflix Reality Universe, his reconnection with Rachel, his villain edit, and more. Read our full interview with Clayton below.
How were you approached by Netflix?
Clayton Echard: I believe it was an email. They reached out and said, “Hey, look, we’re interested. We’ve seen your dancing. We think that you’re a lot of fun, and you’d be a good fit on the show.” And that was, you know, three years after The Bachelor. So I thought, “Okay, enough time has passed. I feel I’m a much more confident version of myself now. So I feel safe enough to, like, put myself back on reality television and give it a go.”
Did you immediately say yes?
Echard: Well, they didn’t immediately say yes to me. It was like, “We’re interested in you. We’re going to take you through the process.” So I immediately said, “Yes, I’ll go through this process.'” And then I found that once I made it towards the end of it, I was like, “Wait, I really want this.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Did you expect to see anyone else from Bachelor Nation on Perfect Match?
Echard: No, not at all. I genuinely thought I was going to be the only person from ABC for sure. Like, I didn’t think anyone from Bachelor Nation. I knew there maybe would be one or two other people from different shows, but I thought they were going to still stick primarily with Netflix stars only. So when Rachel [Recchia] came in, that was quite a shock.
How soon after Rachel entered did you know that you were going to match with her?
Echard: Well, when she came in the house, it was the evening, and I want to say that ended up being like a three-hour night. I feel that we sat and talked [for a] 30-40 minute conversation. People saw parts of that conversation. And really, at the end of that 30-40 minutes, I felt pretty confident with [saying], “Hey, I’m feeling a strong vibe right now, like old feelings are coming back. I’m wondering why you’re here, why we’re both here. Like, what are the chances? This seems like it’s this is bigger than us.”
So I said, “Hey, look, I think we should match.” I also had a pretty weak connection with Juliette [Porter], so… that wasn’t a factor. If I had a strong connection with somebody, I think it would have obviously changed the circumstances. But since Juliette and I were, you know, basically one foot out the door.
Was there anything from that first conversation with Rachel that you wish had been shown?
Echard: Yeah, there are a lot of things throughout all of our conversations that I wish were shown. And maybe this is just my personal perception, I suppose it is, but I think that I wouldn’t have been portrayed as a hero or a saint, with any edit per se.
I mean, what people saw of us getting into, you know, where she ended up becoming very upset. I mean, that night, that was basically probably the duration of the conversation. What people saw, there wasn’t really any missing info from that night. But I do think the surrounding information could have portrayed me in a better light, and it could have made people go, “Okay, he’s not a monster. He’s not a bad guy that’s out to get [Rachel] and destroy her three times in a row. He actually does care about her, and he means well. He ultimately just misjudged his initial connection with her on the show.”
Does that mean that you think you got a villain edit?
Echard: Yeah, I think it’s pretty fair to say. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m biased, but, look, I think that… reality television, there’s no place for nuance. They’ve got 10 episodes. They’ve got to jam everything in that they can. And so those episodes, it’s black or white, it’s good or bad. And, you know, you want one person to root for and the other person to hate.
They decided to place Rachel in the position of the good person and me as the bad. I don’t think they could have flipped it to make her the bad person in any respect. But I think you could have basically put us in the middle ground where you could have said, “Okay, both of them are equally accountable, and both of them deserve some blame.” But that would be a lukewarm position to put people in, and reality television is all about extremes.
At the time, you said that seeing Rachel felt like fate. Can you walk us through that thought process?
Echard: I mean, I’m a very spiritual individual. I’ve done a lot of spirituality endeavors in the last few years, with breath work, with plant medicines, with therapy, with just having constant conversations, listening to podcasts. I mean, I’ve done a lot of work, and ultimately, I’m at a place where I believe that I’m meant to be where I’m at every second of my life. I believe I’m meant to say everything that I’m meant to say, so I don’t overthink things. I used to always overthink things when I was a people pleaser. Like, “How’s someone gonna perceive this? How are people going to, you know, perceive my words, my actions?” And so I was always on guard and freaking out. Now I’m in a place where I’m confident, I have self-love, so I just say and do what I do, and the rest will fall into place.
So that’s ultimately what I did when I went on Perfect Match: I didn’t second-guess my actions. I showed up. I didn’t think [seeing Rachel] was like producer manipulation. Everyone’s like, “Oh, you should have known.” I didn’t think that they’d actually bring on one of my exes from reality television. I thought I was going to be one of the few [non-Netflix] people, and probably the only person from The Bachelor world. But, you know, it wasn’t the case. When [Rachel] showed up, I just thought, “Man, like, this seems like everything happens for a reason,” which I said on the show was my screensaver on my phone, which it was at the time. And so I was like, “This just falls in line with my belief system. So I’m going to choose to believe that this is fate. This is meant to be.” And I still think it was, even with the outcome, it was absolutely meant to be the way that it was.
Courtesy of Netflix
Is “everything happens for a reason” still your screensaver? Or have you changed it to a new quote?
Echard: No, I got a new one. Now it’s more about slowing down in life. It’s called “manifest or rest mode.” I’m always running in hyperdrive. My brain is super speed all the time. So I’m trying to now teach myself… This chapter of my life is all about slowing down, as opposed to trying to do too much at once. I look at my phone 100 times a day. So I want positive messages on there.
My screensaver is my sister’s cat.
Echard: There you go. Well, it’s something you love, right? It’s important that what’s on your screensaver is something that makes you happy, inspires you. It’s something positive, right? Because it’s going to trickle into your brain every time you see your phone, and [the cat will] give you a quick little boost. And I don’t think people realize how powerful [it is] if you’re going to see something 200 times in a day, you should probably put something that’s worthwhile on there.
I’d love to know more about that night that you and Rachel spent matched. What did you talk about during that time you spent together off-camera?
Echard: We talked a lot about the… just the craziness of the whole situation, the ABC versus Netflix differences with the production, with just the whole layout of the show. Obviously, Perfect Match is a little bit raunchier than The Bachelor. And so we’re like, how do we feel? We kind of felt out of place.
I shared with her [that] a lot of what has changed in my life, how I’m excited to be there, and I’ve gone on this crazy spiritual journey. She shared with me some updates in her life, things that she’s been doing. I would say off-camera, in the bedroom, we probably talked for an hour, I think, and then we went to sleep.
When did it hit you that you made that mistake by pursuing things with Rachel?
Echard: I would say it was the next morning when I woke up. I woke up, and I had a pit in my stomach. You know, that’s my intuition. It was just screaming at me, stating, “Hey, emotions were high last night. You know, a lot of old feelings came back.” It’s like, if you bumped into an ex out at a bar somewhere, you hadn’t seen him in a few years, you were all excited, all these old feelings flooded back in, and it clouded a bit of your judgment.
Once the emotions subsided, the rationale kicked in in the morning, and I felt a giant pit. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is not what I should have done. Let me just make sure that this sticks. I don’t want to tell her right now as she’s lying here next to me. Let me give it a day and give it enough time, and make sure that this feeling stays.” It did, so by the end of the day, I was like, “Look, I’ve given it almost a full day, and I’ve been thinking about it the entire time. Nothing has changed. I need to go ahead and cut this off.”
Do you regret matching with Rachel at all, or do you feel like it was something that needed to happen?
Echard: No, I believe it needed to happen. Yeah, I think it gave both of us closure. And ultimately, that’s what she had mentioned as well, even on TV. I wish they had shown the apologies that were had the next morning between her and I. We both apologized for the night before and the reasons why we felt bad for the other. I wish they had shown that, because I think, like showing two exes being amicable, basically healing, and saying, “I wish you the best.” I mean, to me, is a powerful moment.
Perfect Match, Season 3, Episodes 1-9, Streaming Now, Netflix
Perfect Match, Season 3, Episode 10, August 15, Netflix
