‘The Bachelor’: Clayton Echard Confirms He ‘Found Love’ On The Show After Michelle Young Split

Clayton Echard admitted to being ‘a little skeptical’ while starting ‘The Bachelor’ but became ‘pleasantly surprised’ when things ‘turned out much different’ than he thought, in a new interview.

Clayton Echard is speaking out about his journey on The Bachelor! The 28-year-old orthopedic sales rep gave fans of the reality show a little hint about his season when he revealed that he did find love, in a new interview on Good Morning America.

“I did find love,” he said on Dec. 1. “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.”

Before he was picked to be on The Bachelor, Clayton stepped into the spotlight on Michelle Young‘s season of The Bachelorette but was eventually eliminated. Now that he’s the main star of the dating competition series, he admitted he had “a check list of sorts” going into it.

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“I was looking for somebody that was funny, intelligent, driven, put forth effort, and so I figured, ‘OK, that’s a good list and hopefully I’ll find that,'” he explained. “Well what I found was very quickly the women blew my expectations out of the water. They brought all of that and so much more, so the expectations continued to rise, and I realized that, ultimately, I was going to find everything that I wanted and so much more.”

At the end of the experience, Clayton feels “incredibly honored and just humbled” to be a part of the show and take in what it’s taught him.

“There were so many things that I learned,” he said. “I think the biggest one would be becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, and stepping out of that comfort zone. [That] really challenged me to grow as an individual,” he said. “There was just so much that I learned about myself in the period of time that I was there.”

Clayton’s season of The Bachelor will be hosted by Jesse Palmer and is set to premiere Monday, Jan. 3 on ABC.