'Bachelorette' Clare Crawley opens up about past abusive relationship
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Upcoming “Bachelorette” Clare Crawley opened up about her “really, really abusive relationship” that she was in just before she went on Juan Pablo’s season of “The Bachelor.”
Crawley, 39, told “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast hosts Rachel Lindsay and Becca Kufrin that she only recently started opening up about her dark past to friends and producers.
“There's a lot that I went through that I want [the contestants] to know the hard, ugly, embarrassing struggles of my life to appreciate the woman that I am today, and I want a man to love me for that, and not just for the easy makeup and hair,” she said. “Anybody can love you for the easy fun times and the smiles and the laughs.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}'The Bachelorette' Clare Crawley on ABC.
Crawley added: “I want somebody to love me for all the hard stuff that I've been through. It's been something that I've hidden for so many years.”
“The Bachelorette” then got candid about her biggest struggles.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“At one point, I was living in my car for three months, and I barely had a job making minimum wage being a hairstylist's assistant when I first started doing hair. I was in an abusive relationship, and I just had lost my dad, too, so I was at, I would feel like the lowest of lows,” Crawley said.
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Despite the hardships, she told Lindsay and Kufrin that overcoming everything was her “superpower.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She continued, “And after a while, you look back and you go, 'I can't believe how far I've come.’”
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Crawley expressed that she hopes coming forward about her abuse will resonate with viewers.
“It does get better and things can change," she said. “I'm a courageous woman now. Even when I am weak, I still have the courage within myself to do hard things. That is something that I'm proud of now.”
If you or someone you know is suffering from domestic violence, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224.