CHICAGO — The subject of “Love Trapped,” which currently resides at the top of the Apple podcast charts, offers this warning about his story in the series’ first episode:
“Every time you think it couldn’t get crazier, it just does. You have the dating contracts, you have forged medical documents. … There are so many layers to this story that you peel back one, [thinking it] couldn’t get crazier … oh, surprise, there’s another layer. And it just keeps going: restraining orders, the criminal investigation and also just the hope, at the end of it all, that someone’s going to be held accountable.”
The speaker is Clayton Echard, who was the lead on one of the most unpopular seasons of ABC’s “The Bachelor” (episode one of “Love Trapped” is titled “America’s Most Hated Bachelor”). After his unsuccessful run on the 26th season of the reality show, Echard was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, when he had a one-night hookup with a woman, although they did not have sexual intercourse, he said. Nevertheless, soon after, the woman told Echard she was pregnant with his child. It only gets stranger and more convoluted from there.
“Love Trapped” is a production of Glass Podcasts and iHeartPodcasts and is hosted by Stephani Young, who lives in Chicago but is an Arizona native.
“When I found out about this story, I was actually shopping for a wedding dress in Arizona in September of 2023,” Young told Block Club. “And I remember that’s when I first saw the news, when it was public about Clayton. It was the Sun article that came out on Sept. 18, 2023.”
The article was titled “Baby Mama Drama? Bachelor Clayton Echard’s ex-fling demands he take paternity test in court case after she becomes pregnant with twins.”
Young is a longtime journalist who had also worked at Chicago station 101.9 The Mix for several years. She already had a podcast history as the co-host of 2021’s “If the Walls Could Talk …” about the troubled history of the city’s Edgewater Hospital.
“I think we probably interviewed over 100 people for that podcast,” she said. “So, we definitely use that experience of interviewing and trying to find people to talk to for this podcast as well.
“It’s totally different subjects. But the the research and the interviews and the building relationships with the sources, that’s all the same. I used a lot of information from my last job at Scripps News to help with this one, and then obviously broadcasting. I was on The Mix for almost 10 years. So that played a role in me being able to host it.”
As a journalist, Young felt strongly that she could be impartial covering the “he said, she said” story.
“I covered the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee [in 2024], and I also covered the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I was at both of them in person, in Milwaukee, in Chicago, doing both,” Young said. “So when I came into this story, one of the things for me was, ‘I’m going to look at facts, I’m going to look at the information.’ And the facts told a story, pretty quickly, that she just had no credibility.”
In that first episode, Young states, echoing Echard’s sentiments, “I had no idea how big this story really was.”
“There’s so many jaw droppings in this podcast,” she told Block Club. “Ultimately, it’s a paternity scandal, right? That’s what this story is. And typically those have a pretty black-and-white answer. And this is not that.
“I think it’s surprising to find out that there are more victims. I think it’s surprising to find out the lengths this person will go.”
Journalist Stephani Young interviews former Bachelor Clayton Echard for the “Love Trapped” podcast. Credit: Provided
Clayton Echard felt that he had been done a disservice by the producers on “The Bachelor,” with edits that made him out to be less a hero, more a villain. So when Young reached out to cover his story, he was understandably wary, she said.
“I’ve spent so much time with Clayton over the last year, and I can genuinely say that the edit he got on ‘The Bachelor’ is not who he is now. … I think he got a rough edit, but he’s a genuine person,” she said. “He’s authentic, he’s caring and he has been incredibly kind to me.”
Echard’s story spreads incredibly far — into the press, into the courtroom, into the discovery of other victims, aided by “dozens of citizen sleuths and armchair investigators,” as the podcast puts it, via Reddit and other Internet sites.
Young and legal experts quoted on “Love Trapped” give those armchair detectives a lot of credit.
“I think the community that has come from this story and that the guys have had around them has been such an important part of the process,” Young said. “And I’m talking about their families, their friends, the support system they’ve had to help get them through this.
“And I’m also talking about the world of the internet that came together to support these men; I mean, this is one of those stories about internet detectives. You know, they’re online finding information. They’re online sharing information. They’re helping the case. … For me, it’s the community and how people can come together even though something bad has happened. It’s the support that you have around you that gets you through these things, and the stuff that you can find on the internet, like the research that they were able to do to find this woman.
“I think one of Clayton’s attorneys said it best. He’s like, ‘They are better than any private investigator that I hired.’”
Obviously, Young couldn’t say too much ahead of the “Love Trapped” finale, but she promised that the 12th episode, which drops Thursday, would reveal a considerable amount about court cases tied to the scandal and the future of the podcast itself.
But Young did agree to answer this question: How is Clayton Echard today, after this horrendous, years-long ordeal?
“He is doing great. He got a house in Phoenix,” Young said. “His whole family lives there. I just talked to him this morning. He’s doing a lot of real estate stuff in Arizona, and to me, he seems happy. He seems like he’s on the other side of this.”
“Love Trapped” has just been named the “Pick of the Month” in the True Crime category on Apple podcasts. The season finale drops Thursday.
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