Tayshia Adams: Why I Almost Turned Down Being on ‘The Bachelorette’
A careful decision. Tayshia Adams nearly passed up on the opportunity to be the Bachelorette after Clare Crawley’s sudden exit.
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“In a perfect Bachelor world according to them, it would have been I would be in the car an hour after my conversation with them. They were hoping I would leave that day, but I actually said I needed to think about it,” Adams, 29, recalled on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast on Wednesday, November 11. “I need to talk to my parents and I need to take a minute, just because the way I was entering The Bachelorette space was very unconventional.”
The former phlebotomist continued, “Very true to 2020, but I was taking on a little bit more than I think previous Bachelorettes have in the sense that there was somebody before me. I was going to ask the guys not only to remove themselves from that headspace but take me on and see if they were willing to be open.”
Adams told cohosts Rachel Lindsay and Becca Kufrin that “it was probably about 48 hours” between her receiving the call from an executive producer and heading off to the La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California. When the EP called Adams, he acknowledged that she had previously requested to be informed about casting news in person after learning Crawley, 39, nabbed the role. She felt that her life had been “uprooted” during that time since potential leads “can’t really make plans” while waiting to hear what is next.
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“It kind of messed with me quite a bit, actually,” she admitted. “I told them, ‘That’s not fair to me. I know there’s other girls in the conversation, but I was fine. I was fine. And next time you do it, you better come to my house and tell me in person because at this point, I don’t want a phone call. I’m not going to [Bachelor in] Paradise, I’m not doing The Bachelorette again, I don’t want anything to do [with it]. I’m done.’”
Before beginning her journey, Adams was also “fearful” that the suitors thought Crawley “was more their type” than she would be since they were initially there to pursue the Bachelor Winter Games alum.
The Bachelorette’s 16th season experienced major road bumps leading up to its October premiere. After Crawley was announced as the Bachelorette in March, the start of production was delayed due to the global coronavirus outbreak. Shortly after filming resumed in July, the hairdresser left the show after getting engaged to Dale Moss.
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Adams stepped in to replace Crawley, making her the second Black Bachelorette and first Latina woman in the coveted role. She had previously competed on Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor, which aired in 2019, and briefly dated John Paul Jones after they met on Bachelor in Paradise that same year.
The “Click Bait” cohost recently told Us Weekly that she was happy she didn’t speak with Crawley before becoming the Bachelorette. “Even if I did have the opportunity, I don’t know if I would have asked [anything],” she told Us on Monday, November 9. “This is the thing: I have learned that you have to give everybody a chance and you never know what that’s going to look like. It might not look, like, the same for you as it did for somebody else.”
The “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast can be listened to wherever podcasts are streamed.
