Will Clare Crawley Be Replaced on 'The Bachelorette'? (Spoilers)

Update 8/5: The news that Tayshia Adams will replace Clare Crawley has been confirmed by none other than People, even though the show has remained quiet about what's going on officially. Not only that, but there's also this little nugget of information from a source talking to People:

"One of her potential guys found a way to get in touch with her and they began talking...By the time filming officially began, they were basically already in love. No one else stood a chance. It just became so obvious from her subsequent few dates that her heart wasn’t in it and she just wasn’t feeling it. Then she said she wanted out."

So that provides good potential context: If Moss and Crawley were connecting before the season began, it would make sense that their connection was strong before the two met up in La Quinta.

But! The plot continues to thicken, and strangely. Bachelor alum from Peter Weber's season Hannah Ann Sluss was spotted at the La Quinta where the show is filming—with a pretty large suitcase in tow, no less. In that same article and confirmed by a spoiler account, it was also speculated that Becca Kufrin was also spotted at the La Quinta Hotel. 

Having alums on current seasons isn't necessarily a new thing, particularly to offer advice and guidance to one or both of our bachelorettes, but it's still an interesting wrinkle. Why would Sluss have such a giant suitcase if she was just there for a day—and does she have a relationship to either of the Bachelorettes?? There was a rumor that Sluss was originally in the running to be Bachelorette when interviews were being conducted. We'll see.

Update, 8/3, 4 p.m. ET: According to E!, Tayshia Adams will replace Clare Crawley after Crawley found love early on in the season. According to an E! source: "The producers have told her that the season will still lead with Clare and her short-lived journey, and will show Clare falling in love with one of her suitors...Clare will then conclude her journey and announce that Tayshia is the lead." Production only just started on Clare's show after months of delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Spoilers for The Bachelorette ahead. Guys, I don't know about you, but the more I hear about this season of The Bachelorette with Clare Crawley—which I'm lovingly referring to as The Bachelorette: Quarantine Edition, or Bachelor in Paradise but With Only One Female—the wilder it sounds. The rumors of extra drama shouldn't exactly come as a surprise, given the nature of filming this year: The contestants and Crawley all headed to La Quinta to be tested for COVID, then quarantine, and then spend the entire season at a hotel as a closed set without any travel outside the hotel. But that might not even be the craziest thing going on, if recent rumors are to be believed. If you've perused Bachelor-verse Instagram the past couple days, the question on your mind will be: Wait, is Crawley being fired/replaced/sent home/otherwise not going to be The Bachelorette anymore? Let's break down what we know, and we'll keep this post updated.  

Is The Bachelorette Clare Crawley being replaced?

Before we get there, some context: Two days ago, Redditor Throwawayspoiler2020 offered up a long, detailed spoiler of Crawley's season, claiming to be a person in the know. I'll just leave it here:

Further evidence includes an Us Weekly article verified by Reality Steve that some of the "backup" guys from Crawley's season were contacted about whether they wanted to come back and be on the show or not (it doesn't look like any have accepted). Reddit moderators verified that the sources Throwawayspoiler2020 used were legitimate, but as of this moment the rumor's still unverified.

Reality Steve jumped in to see if he could verify the information and said there was "serious validity" (omg).

What could be the reasons behind the replacement?

Then, Reality Steve did an Instagram Live with Ashley Spivey, from Brad Womack's second turn as Bachelor. In it, RS clarified what he said he knew: There are two potential options here, he claimed. One: Crawley is butting heads with producers, as theorized, or that she's got her heart set on one contestant in particular and has told production she doesn't want to date anyone else. Rumors are that it may be this utterly handsome man, Dale Moss, and that there's even a chance she chatted with him before her season officially started.

Her salon actually follows Moss, per Reddit, so that feels like there's some kind of pre-show connection between them? I would love this for a couple reasons. If Crawley, a Bachelor franchise veteran, just put her foot down and quit for the guy she's into, I kind of love that insistence. It also sounds a lot better than "she's acting badly," especially since this is the oldest Bachelorette we've ever had and the connection could be made that "older" = "difficult" (as Spivey noted in the Instagram Live). 

Is Tayshia Adams going to be the new Bachelorette?

Tayshia Adams, who was on Colton Underwood's Bachelor season and Bachelor in Paradise, was apparently in the top three for Bachelorette this year. That means they'd be picking their alternate. I loooove Tayshia and I would loooove this, although coming in mid-season with a bunch of men pre-selected for someone else might also make the season a bit of a headache for her. 

As of this moment, the last time Adams posted on Instagram, she left this cryptic caption and didn't say where she was: 

And fans immediately jumped into the comments asking for confirmation of the news. Reality Steve chatted with her friend and fellow Bachelor alum Demi Burnett on that same Instagram Live; Burnett had texted Adams (no response) but admitted that the text messages showed up as green, not blue. Reality Steve took that as a good sign Adams was at least out in La Quinta, combined with some other information he'd been hearing. TBD.