JoJo Fletcher Criticizes Clare Crawley’s Handling of Bachelorette Group Date

JoJo Fletcher knows a thing or two about successfully navigating a season of The Bachelorette, and she isn’t entirely impressed with the way Clare Crawley has handled things.

In the first group date of the season, Crawley snapped at nine of her suitors for not jumping at the opportunity to pull her aside for one-on-one time. She was so bothered by the interaction that she left a chat with contestant Bennett Jordan to tell off the group of men.

“I’m sitting here, I made a toast, and there was the longest awkward silence,” Crawley said. “I just sat here and was embarrassed and had to like…Does anybody want to spend time with me?

“If you guys all want to hang out with each other, you can do that, and I can go home and go to bed.”

Clare Feels Insulted By the Guys – The BacheloretteWhen Clare joins the cocktail party after a group date, there’s an awkward silence, and no one immediately pulls Clare away to talk. Bennett eventually whisks her away, but Clare can’t help feeling like she’d been slighted by the guys — and decides to take it up with them directly. From ‘Week 2’ of ‘The…2020-10-21T05:00:01Z

Fletcher thought Crawley was a little unfair to the men on that date. In an interview with Us Weekly, Fletcher said “I would have given them more grace.”

Fletcher Says the Men Were Still Learning How to Approach a Group Date

Dating someone at the same time as 20 other people isn’t exactly normal. Sharing a date with eight other men is (presumably) something none of the nine contestants on The Bachelorette had ever done before.

While Crawley is well aware of the decorum of a group date in the Bachelor world, it’s easy to understand why the nine men were wary about the possibility of stepping on someone else’s toes.

Fletcher says that’s why she would’ve cut the men more slack for the awkward pause.

“I know going through it as the cast is, being like one of the first sort of scenarios in this group setting, they don’t know what to do,” Fletcher told Us Weekly. “They didn’t know what to do. And so that’s what I was thinking in my mind.”

“On Clare’s side, she’s done this before,” Fletcher continued. “She’s a veteran. She came into this being like, ‘I know exactly what I want.’ And so, you know, she came in, she told them what she thought and they’re like, ‘Ah, I didn’t even know.’ So I think now that that’s been said and the standard’s been set, I don’t think they’ll wait around anymore, but I would have given them more grace, just because I don’t think the guys knew. I don’t think it was intentional.”

Fletcher Will Temporarily Take Over as Bachelorette Host Later in the Season

Fletcher commenting on the first two episodes of The Bachelorette are especially interesting considering she will take over as host at some point.

According to Us Weekly, Fletcher was called in to host for 14 days so Chris Harrison could quarantine after leaving the Bachelorette bubble to drop his son off at college. Harrison dropped off his son in mid-August, so Fletcher will be the show’s temporary host during the Tayshia Adams portion of the season.

And just like Fletcher thought Crawley needed to cut the guys some slack on the group date, she hopes viewers will give her a break.

“I was obviously super excited that they would even think of me to do that or trust me to do that,” Fletcher told Us Weekly. “I’m definitely nervous. I mean, Chris makes it look incredibly easy. Because he’s really good at his job, you know, and so I feel like I did my best. I try to stay within the lines of doing Chris Harrison’s job in his role, but I’m never gonna be Chris Harrison. So hope everyone has that in mind when they’re watching.”

We’ll cut you some slack, JoJo.

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