CLEVELAND — In another explosive episode of the Shanae Ankney show, more commonly known as Clayton Echard's season of "The Bachelor," the Ohio native admits to lying in an apology to the other women and takes pleasure in securing another rose from the former NFL football player, while Clayton live-tweeted his embarrassment for keeping her around.
Meanwhile, Ohio University alum and private pilot Rachel Recchia seems to be quietly making her way to the front of the pack in the fight for Clayton's love, winning a group date rose while we hear Clayton say he thinks about her all the time when they're not together.
Shanae, 29, wasn't on that group date, but her presence was very much felt as the women playfully roasted each other and Clayton but had much harsher "jokes" about Shanae, with one woman saying she was like a herpes outbreak, another saying she behaved as if she were "Jeffrey Dahmer calling himself a victim in his own crimes," another calling out her "fake tears."
The "fake tears" comment comes from Shanae being called on the carpet for cursing at two fellow contestants and throwing the football trophy they that won during week four's football game group date after-party that she crashed.
She burst into tears while apologizing for her actions (at Clayton's urging), only to later reveal she was not sorry at all during a testimonial interview with producers.
During her tearful apology to the women, and a few openly told Shanae that they'd be open to building a relationship with her, before we see Shanae tell cameras that she deservers an Oscar, an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance, which she said was better acting than that of Meryl Streep.
"Give me the Oscar, give me the Emmy, give me the Golden Globe and give me the f***ing rose," Shanae says, in her on-camera producer interview.
Shanae is clearly being disingenuous in one of the scenarios: either she is lying about faking her apology, or that tearful apology was completely manipulative and only designed to keep her around for at least one more week. As someone who has been watching this show for a long time, it's honestly hard to tell at this point, but the Bachelor seems to believe the latter to be true.
On Monday, Clayton quoted a tweet from someone saying, "It’s honestly scary how manipulative Shanae is like is she secretly a serial killer," adding his own comment to say, "Lock her up! She’s killed all my credibility already [loudly crying face emoji]."
Clayton quoted another user who posted a meme of a man in clown makeup and wrote that it was Clayton watching Monday's show, with Clayton adding, "Haven’t taken off the paint for 3 weeks now!!"
Either way, Shanae secured another rose and at least one more week on the wildly popular reality dating competition show, and is now one of 12 women still competing for Clayton's love.
Following the airing of Monday night's episode, Shanae posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: "See you next Monday [winking kissy face emoji]." Shanae is great at throwing subtle shade on social media related to the show, so I have to wonder if this choice of phrasing is a play on the phrase "See you next Tuesday," a phrase that is often used in place of a "disparaging and obscene" term for a woman.
What happens next week could be a bit more out of Shanae's control.
After five weeks of seeing Shanae run the show by ignoring its long-standing norms (which we have to stop short of calling "rules," because as we've seen, there are no rules here), we see her get selected for the dreaded two-on-one date with 26-year-old Los Angeles bartender Genevieve Parisi, where at least one of the women has historically been sent home.
The end of the episode shows Shanae telling producers she has a plan to send Genevieve home, referring to her as "the last trash bag she wants to take out." The two join Clayton at Niagara Falls, but after showing just a few minutes of their date, the episode ends as "To Be Continued" flashes on the screen. Preview clips shows Clayton asking a stunned-looking Genevieve if she's an actress who has been lying to him this entire time.
To find out what happens with Shanae and Rachel's love stories, check back next Tuesday for our weekly recap following the airing of The Bachelor on Monday night on ABC.
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