Clayton Echard’s journey as the Bachelor has officially begun!

Clayton’s season kicked off with a jaw-dropping premiere filled with both romance and drama right off the bat.

And now, Clayton is sitting down exclusively with BachelorNation.com to share his thoughts on his season.

He reveals everything from the moment when he realized he was in love with multiple women to why the latest teaser doesn’t give away as much as some Bachelor Nation fans think it does.

Check out his full interview below!

Bachelor Nation: First and foremost, congrats on night one! It was a blast to watch. Did any of the women stand out and have your favorite limo entrance?

Clayton Echard: Looking back on it, I really liked Marlena’s entrance. I thought that was very unique of her. She brought the penalty flag with so much confidence and made me laugh. If you make me laugh, you’re already going to be up there as one of my favorites! Gabby had a fun one as well. The pillow caught me off guard and I didn’t know what to do other than just laugh.

BN: Yes, those were both great. You had some fun entrances! At the end of the episode, we saw in the promo that you fell in love with multiple women. You’ve said you told yourself you wouldn’t fall in love with multiple women; was there a moment when you realized that had shifted?

CE: Yeah, that shift was during Hometowns. At that point, the women were expressing these emotions and I still hadn’t told them how I felt. I was kind of withholding it all. It’s not that I felt any pressure, I just realized that regardless of the situation, in a relationship it needs to be a two-way street. If someone’s giving their 100 percent, you’ve also got it give it 100 percent. I was holding back those feelings because I was afraid of what would happen if I started to fall for multiple women. I was like, ‘How is my brain going to make sense of that?’ At the time, it didn’t make sense to me how that could be possible. But I realize now that it can happen and it did. Once it did, I mean, it was scary, but it allowed me to then start growing those relationships even more once they knew where I stood.

BN: That makes a lot of sense. Like you said, relationships definitely are a two-way street. And speaking of that promo, some fans think the promo gave too much away. What do you have to say to that having lived it?

CE: Yeah, the initial one came out and you saw a couple faces and everyone I saw online was saying they thought they knew who the final women were. But since then, there have been more promos and there were like 10 more faces shown. So everyone thinks they have figured out who the final people are, but I guess that depends on which promo you watched. Truly, the promos showed so little. The reason they showed that much was because there was so much more behind it. There’s a lot to unpack and people will see that at the end of it all, the initial promos hardly showed anything.

BN: Is there anything you can share that may surprise fans that wasn’t in the promos?

CE: So much! There’s literally so much. I watched the promos and I was like, “OK, yeah, that’s a good teaser, because that kind of does touch on those big moments,” but at the same time, I’m curious to see what is shown. There is so much being filmed at all times and they can’t show every little thing, otherwise this show would go into 2023! So I’m curious to see what exactly is shown, but I will say there is a lot that I think will shock people as it all unfolds.

BN: We can’t wait to watch it all! Do you look back at the experience now and wish you would’ve done anything differently or are you confident in your decisions?

CE: I’m very confident in my decisions. I’ve been asked if I regret anything and it’s like, maybe if I could have looked into the future and saw how things would occur, I may have gone back and done things differently, but not how life goes, on “The Bachelor” or anywhere else. So as far as what happened, I did everything that I thought was best at that moment. I was being me and making judgment calls based off of what I felt in that moment. So because of that, I can’t regret anything. Even through all the adversity and the negativity, I still learned a lot and for that, I’m thankful.

BN: That’s a really good way to look at it. Do you have a favorite part of the journey and a part that was most challenging for you?

CE: Yeah, my favorite part was definitely getting to know all the different women from all the different backgrounds. The diversity that we had was incredible. Each woman brought a different story to the table and I was listening as much as possible and asking all the questions. The experience really helped me realize that I didn’t necessarily have a “type.” I realized I was just looking for who makes me the most happy when I wake up in the morning and who’s that first person that pops up on my mind. I realized my “type” is very fluid and that’s awesome. It was crazy that I got to that point to realize this and those women helped me get there. And at the same time, the most challenging part is realizing there isn’t just a list that I can check off. You can’t compare if one person checks 100 boxes or another checks 99 boxes. It really just came down to feelings. And when it comes down to feelings, I can’t always rationalize them. As a very rational person, that’s where I struggled.

BN: That’s totally understandable. You have a great group of women, so those decisions can’t be easy! Was it helpful having former Bachelor Jesse Palmer by your side as the host?

CE: Oh yeah. The big thing was, as I was trying to get to know the women, I was also trying to get to know Jesse. I had to figure out what our relationship was going to be like, if I could trust him, and if I could confide in him. I wasn’t sure if he was just going to be a host and have baseline conversations only on camera. But because I didn’t have my family and friends around, I wanted Jesse to be somebody I could connect with and be that friend I needed. And really quickly on the very first night, we clicked. I think at one point they had to stop us from talking so much! We just had such a great time together. I trusted him, and we have so much in common. Because of that, during the moments where I felt like I was losing my mind, he brought me back down to Earth. I am so thankful that I had him along for the journey.

BN: That’s incredible! Did you receive advice from any other Bachelors or Bachelorettes?

CE: Yeah, I’ve had so many fellow Bachelor Nation stars reach out and I’ve even met some of them in person. The single greatest piece of advice I was given was just to let go of control with no explanation beyond that. At the time I asked what they all meant by that, but every one of them said it looks different to everyone. For me, I realized that I am someone who likes to control things as much as I can because it gives me a sense of safety when I feel like I have control. But when it comes to dating 30 women, no one can control that. You just can’t. So once I was able to let go, enjoy the moment, and stop trying to control every single part of the experience, I was able to just focus solely on relationships. This advice just put me in a better mental state that I needed to be in.

BN: That’s great advice for life in general! We can’t even control it all, as much as we’d like to. Last but not least, we all saw you on Michelle Young’s season of “The Bachelorette,” but did you do anything to prepare for an entire season of watching yourself each week?