The Bachelorette host Chris Harrison has insisted Clare Crawley was "certainly not" forced off the show due to her early connection with Dale Moss and she had "complete control" of Season 16.

ADVERTISEMENT

Clare Crawley recently liked multiple tweets from fans speculating production had forced her off the show although it's been widely reported Clare up and quit her season after falling in love with Dale.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

Harrison, however, has teased for weeks that Clare blew up The Bachelorette, and he apparently still stands by the fact Clare decided to end her time on the show just a couple of weeks into filming.

"I would just say she has complete control," Harrison told Entertainment Tonight, adding that Clare was "certainly not" forced off the show.

"This season of The Bachelorette was completely about Clare. It's all about Clare, and she will decide where we go from here. It's totally, completely up to her."

The Bachelorette fan Marietou Sangare tweeted this past weekend she believes production was "trying to force" Clare off her season because it was clear "how bad she wanted" to be the franchise's leading lady.

"They had [Tayshia Adams] quarantined 9 days after Clare started filming. They wanted to remove Clare. And I just don't think it's fair," Marietou continued, further claiming Clare has been given "a bad edit" on Season 16.

"They are feeding into the narrative and the rumors and making it seem like it was Clare's decision that this ended and I feel like that's not the case. Production knows exactly what they were doing. They've never had a lead just 'quit'... They were ready with a back up."

Clare "liked" Marietou's posts on Twitter, but Harrison assured ET that producers didn't go into her season with some type of Plan B.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)  

"It was all really about Plan A, and it was all about, 'What do we do with this season with Clare, and where do we go with that?'" Harrison explained.

"Really, it was about Clare and her decisions. It's her decisions that you're gonna see -- well, you saw obviously, in Tuesday's episode. I really put it in her court, it is completely up to her."

Clare's emotional and dramatic time on The Bachelorette will apparently come to a head in the next episode airing Thursday, November 5 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC due to the election.

ABC executive Robert Mills also confirmed on The Viall Files podcast that Tayshia will make her first appearance on the show next week as Clare's The Bachelorette replacement.

Harrison teased the ending of Clare's journey to find love "really is something that you're all gonna need to see next week."

"I like for you to see everything and then you can judge," he added, "but in my humble opinion, I really feel like you'll see next week, it's her call where we go from here."

As The Bachelorette fans saw on Tuesday night's episode, Clare referred to Dale as her "fiance" when she spoke to producers behind-the-scenes.

Clare also told the cameras that she was falling in love with Dale, and she teased this may be "the shortest season ever" when confiding in former The Bachelorette star DeAnna Pappas, who paid Clare a surprise visit.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)

But it didn't take Clare two weeks to notice Dale.

When Dale stepped out of a limo and spoke to Clare for the first time, she said she felt like she had just met her husband, and she appeared to be dizzy and overwhelmed with excitement. 

"The first night, I went in more of just to capture that moment and lean into that moment,'" Harrison recalled of his surprised reaction to Clare's big revelation on Night 1.

"I kinda thought, 'This'll be good because we won't be going in this direction in just another week or two, and this'll be interesting that she was falling so hard for this guy and felt so strong, yet here we are on this other path.' That tends to be what happens."

However, the storyline didn't play out as Harrison had anticipated.

"That's not what's happening here, and that was just the tip of the iceberg, and it's only gone more severe in that direction," Harrison told ET.

"So, I go back to that and I wanna go, 'Wow, okay, maybe she was onto something and maybe she really did feel that strongly.'"

Harrison acknowledged he had "never seen a lead fall that hard that heavy" on the first night of filming.

"I've had lead say, "Wow, I'm really blown away. I really like that person,' and end up with that person in the end, but it was not a just out and out, 'Let's just stop this right now'-type of a feeling," The Bachelorette host explained.

RELATED LINK: 'DANCING WITH THE STARS' PROS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: WHO'S DATING OR MARRIED TO WHOM!? (PHOTOS)

Harrison -- who noted he hasn't spoken with Clare "for a few weeks now" -- said while producers didn't kick Clare off her season, the ending will be "totally up to interpretation."

"I think next week will be very enlightening," he teased. "I'll let everybody judge for themselves."

Marietou's tweets were apparently reference claims previously made in Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone's blog.

Carbone wrote in a September 30 blog post that production knew all along, from even before filming began, that Tayshia would replace Clare as the show's star at some point in the season.

Producers could tell in Clare's pre-production interviews that she was crazy about Dale and would probably develop strong feelings for him that she wouldn't be able to hide as filming progressed, according to Carbone.

"The reports that came out during filming of production being caught off guard, Clare putting them in a tough spot, they didn't know what to do, etc. is all BS," Carbone claimed in his blog, adding that production already had Tayshia quarantining at The Bachelorette resort.

"I can report to you that this was in production's plan before Clare's season started. They knew Clare would be removed at some point during this season and replaced as the Bachelorette by Tayshia."

Carbone and Clare's good friend Michelle Money have both insisted Clare had no pre-show relationship with Dale and the pair never talked or FaceTimed prior to filming, contrary to reports that circulated earlier this summer.

Clare did, however, admit she had researched some of her 32 potential suitors who were announced back in March, before filming got postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Dale was one of those initial 32 hopefuls).

Whether Clare was forced off The Bachelorette mid-season by producers or voluntarily ended her journey prematurely -- maybe because the men quit on her, based on the end of Tuesday night's episode -- she is now reportedly engaged to Dale, and recent reports claim the pair are still in love.

Clare recently told People "there is so much that happens that people don't even know."

"I'm a woman who really listens to my gut. And it didn't lead me astray," she told the magazine.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!




About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON GOOGLE NEWS