The Bachelorette: Clare Crawley gets ENGAGED to Dale Moss and Tayshia Adams makes show debut

Clare Crawley got engaged to Dale Moss on Thursday’s action-packed episode of The Bachelorette and Tayshia Adams was introduced as her replacement.

The 39-year-old series star was smitten with Dale, 31, since he stepped out of the limo on the season 16 premiere of the ABC show and soon declared her love for him.

He reciprocated on the two-hour episode and dropped to a knee as he proposed to her. 

The episode had been a fraught one for Clare, who was in love with Dale when it began but remained stuck at the resort with the men she was ‘dating.’

Her suitors were frustrated by her clear interest in the hunky football player, and lack of interest in them.

On her last group date, Claire made out with Dale all night and refused to give out a rose.

All she could talk about was how much she was falling in love, and the ‘intangible chemistry’ she had with Dale.

Chris then knocked on her door, and urged her to sit down, saying, ‘We need to talk.’

‘The guys in the house are unhappy,’ he shared. ‘These are smart men. They know what’s going on. The path we’re on right now, we can’t continue.’

Clare knew it was coming. ‘I respect the process,’ she started to say, as Chris quickly stopped her and asked what she was really feeling.

‘I totally am head-over-heels for Dale,’ she admitted. ‘He’s amazing.’

Clare said that during the show’s pre-taping COVID quarantine she spent time looking at the guys’ social media pages, and immediately felt connected to Dale.

The more she read about him, the more she saw strange parallels to their lives, and her feeling and affection for him grew.

‘Can I ask you a very honest question?’ Chris asked. ‘Don’t f*** with me. Did you guys talk before the show?’

Clare shook her head. ‘Not one word, not one bit. I swear on my dad’s grave.’

She cried as she told Chris she thought Dale was her match, noting that he reminded her of her father.

‘I waited so long for this,’ Clare said. ‘What we do? Because I don’t know how to go on… I don’t want to disrespect these guys or waste their time.’

‘We’ve never dealt with anything like this before,’ Chris observed. ‘I think we have to reinvent this whole thing.’

He looked at Clare, and pressed, ‘In your mind, right now, is this over?’

‘Yeah,’ she replied softly.

‘Okay,’ Chris said. ‘Congratulations, you’ve just blown up The Bachelorette.’

He went to tell Dale that in lieu of a group date that day, Clare wanted to spend time with him.

Over dinner, a besotted Clare told Dale what had been going on.

She said that she felt like she knew him well, even though they’d never had a one-on-one date, and that she’d couldn’t bear giving another man her rose.

She shared that her father had only met her mother once before he hitchhiked to her house and proposed to her, and they were married 42 years.

Dale replied that his father had met his mother at a sports camp and hitchhiked to her house, and they were married 40 years.

Both said they had shut down after losing their parents, and Dale revealed that the show had helped him open up.

‘In February, you’re announced as the Bachelorette, and I see you walk out, I remember it clear as yesterday,’ he recalled. ‘You had just a beautiful presence and aura, and an excitement, and it was everything. And I was in.’

Clare said that she’d tried to be ‘open-minded’ on the show, and consider the other men, but she thought about Dale constantly, adding, ‘I’m so falling in love with you.’

‘When we met, I felt love,’ Dale agreed. ‘And that’s what I came here for. And I’m falling in love with you through this process. I’m not afraid to say that at all.’

They told each other they’d been dying to say it the whole time, and kissed.

In a confessional, Clare said, ‘To every single person who has ever told me to settle, and that the man that I’m looking for is not out there… I’m having dinner with him right now.’

After the two of them finished eating, they danced to the song Found You, played live by Chris Watson & Bri Strauss, the winners of The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart.

They then spent the night together, and rose in the morning looking happy.

Chris stopped by Clare’s again and affirmed, ‘The goal was to fall in love, and you’ve done it.’

Clare said she’d happily spend the rest of her life with Dale, and asked, ‘What do we do?’

‘The next step,’ Chris intoned. ‘Proposal.’

Clare went to face her suitors, who listened patiently as she haltingly told them she had chosen Dale, saying, ‘I’m a woman who knows what I want… and I’m going for it.’

While shocked, most of the guys were kind in their responses, though Kenny Braasch, 39, told Clare she should ‘apologize for faking it’ and not immediately telling them she loved Dale.

Clare teared up. ‘I’ll apologize if I wasted your time,’ she said. ‘I’ll apologize if I hurt you. But I’m not gonna apologize for love.’

After she said goodbye, the men revealed how crushed they were, with Blake Moynes, 29, noting that he’d ‘invested early,’ even reading up on dementia to understand her ailing mom.

Clare nervously waited to see Dale again, wondering if he would propose.

That night, she told him how excited she’d been to meet him, how electric their connection was, and how she immediately knew he was her husband.

‘You embody everything that I want in a man,’ Clare insisted, ‘And most importantly, you’ve shown me that you would never run away, and never leave me.’

Dale said he saw a real future with her, recognizing that she’d go ‘to the ends of the earth’ for him, and acknowledging that his mom would have loved her.

They told each other they loved each other, too, and kissed.

‘The best is yet to come,’ Dale attested. ‘I want to make you happy each and every day. So, with that…’

He got done on one knee, and proposed. Clare said yes.

‘Put that ring on my finger!’ she insisted. ‘I’ve waited a lot of years for this.’

She gave Dale her final rose, and he picked her up, saying, ‘Let’s do the d**n thing!’

The next day, Chris told the guys Clare had gotten engaged.

‘We have never dealt with anything like this in the history of our show,’ he apologized. ‘And that’s going to cause us to do something historic as well.’

The men could stay with the program, Chris said, but they had to decide if they wanted to that evening.

Jason Foster, 31, who’d had a one-on-one with Clare, was devastated, as was Blake, but they showed up that night anyway, and learned they would meet a new Bachelorette.

‘This woman is incredible,’ Chris said. ‘She is smart, independent, stunningly beautiful, really kind and charismatic, wants to spend time with you guys, wants to get to know you guys—and most importantly, she really is in a place in her life where she wants to find love.’

‘We’re gonna start The Bachelorette right now again,’ he added, and went outside to get Tayshia Adams, 30.  

A Bachelor franchise vet, Tayshia featured in season 23 of The Bachelor and the sixth season of Bachelor In Paradise, but ended both shows single.

As she stepped out of the limo, glowing in a sparkly gown, show host Chris asked her how she felt.

‘It hasn’t hit me yet,’ Tayshia said, laughing and wondering if she was being ‘punked.’

Her experience didn’t make her any less nervous to meet her 16 suitors, who were waiting inside the show’s resort and had no idea who she was.

Tayshia knew they might be pining for Clare, but hoped it was the ‘right moment in time’ for her to arrive.

‘I wouldn’t be standing here, I don’t think, if it wasn’t meant to be,’ she considered.

‘In the next 10 seconds, you could meet your husband,’ Chris reminded her.

‘Oh my gosh,’ Tayshia said, walking toward the door. ‘I am so ready.’

Dale and Clare were then shown at home making lunch ‘outside the bubble’ of The Bachelorette.

‘You look so good,’ Dale said, as Clare held up her ring and asked, ‘Does this make me look even better?’

She faced the cameras. ‘Can you believe it, guys?’ she crowed. ‘I am engaged!’

The Bachelorette will return next week on ABC.