Clare Crawley Ex-Fiance Says ABC Pushed Her Out as Lead of ‘The Bachelorette’

ABC - Lorenzo Bevilaqua 'The Bachelorette' Clare Crawley and ex-fiance Benoit Beausejour-Savard.

Benoit Beauséjour-Savard’s engagement with Clare Crawley was short-lived, but the pair remained close friends following their break up. Now Beauséjour-Savard is speaking up about Crawley’s roller coaster ride as The Bachelorette and what he thinks really happened to prompt the swap to Tayshia Adams.

According to Beauséjour-Savard, it was likely producers of the show who coerced Crawley into a departure that “wasn’t her ultimate decision.”

“I think, like, ultimately it was production that came at her and said, ‘You know what, Clare, I feel like you’re not giving it a fair chance, you’re really into Dale, so we want you to be happy’ and they had like a common agreement on her maybe leaving the show but I feel like it wasn’t her ultimate decision,” Beauséjour-Savard told Us Weekly.

That’s not all. Beauséjour-Savard also made it clear that he thinks The Bachelorette‘s producers are doing what they can to villainize his ex-fiancé.

Benoit Says Show’s Portrayal ‘Is Not the Clare That I Know’

ABCClare Crawley during the season premiere of The Bachelorette.

Crawley has not come off well in her time as the lead of The Bachelorette. She’s been portrayed as disrespectful to the time of 30 contestants due to an obsessive crush on her clear frontrunner and favorite, Dale Moss. Even host Chris Harrison told the 16 men left stranded by her abrupt departure that they were “a little cheated” by the process and never really stood a chance.

In episode three, Crawley was shown telling producers that she was bothered by jokes made at her “fiancé’s” expense after several contestants ripped into Moss at a comedy roast group date.

Beauséjour-Savard believes that moment was actually in his defense, not Moss’, and the clip was a frankenbite (a sound bite that was edited to have a different meaning) so as to make Crawley look entirely devoted to Moss.

“When she called him her fiancé, a lot of people were telling me, ‘Benoit, I feel like they just cut out the ex-fiancé part and maybe they made some jokes about you and that was not fair,’ so there’s no way she would have called him at that moment her fiancé,” Beauséjour-Savard told Us Weekly. “I know Clare and I know how she is. Why would she have called him her fiancé at that moment, especially in that part because she’s, like, walking, you can see the back of her head so you can’t really read her lips, so it’s weird a bit.”

All in all, Beauséjour-Savard says the image that the show has created for Crawley doesn’t match the person he met on The Bachelor Winter Games.

“I would say this is not the Clare that I know. Put yourself into her shoes, you’re doing quarantine in a resort. This show’s a bit [of a] mindf—k, you’re been there, it’s a lot to manage and I feel like at some point maybe she was overwhelmed by all of this,” he said. “She felt super strong feelings with Dale and then this whole thing played out. … There’s a little difference in the Clare that is shown on TV than the Clare that I know in real life.”

Benoit Hasn’t Been Mentioned on The Bachelorette

ABC – Edward HerreraBenoit Beausejour-Savard

It’s a little odd that Crawley’s ex-fiancé hasn’t really even been mentioned as part of his back story so far on The Bachelorette. While the relationship was brief (they broke off their engagement after less than two months), Beausejour-Savard was supposed to appear on the show.

He revealed on his Instagram that he filmed a segment with Crawley that was to air during the season premiere, but was left on the cutting room floor. He believes it just wasn’t juicy enough and was “just two exes having a fun chat.”

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