Clare Crawley Bachelorette Casting Reportedly Drops 13 Men for Older Suitors

While the cast for the upcoming season of "The Bachelorette" was locked in at one time, that time has long since come and gone, along with many other things in this pandemic-stricken world.

As soon as the coronavirus-induced shutdowns killed the launch of Clare Crawley's season, speculation began to run rampant that ABC and producers would use the opportunity to collectively age up her cast of suitors. Now it looks like that's happening at last.

When Clare was announced as the Bachelorette and fans were able to compare the 39-year-old to her suitors, they quickly noticed that she is older than almost all of them, and by quite some measure in many cases.

According to the network at the time, this is because the men were cast before they knew who their Bachelorette was going to be. But even after they'd put together a cast of mostly guys in their 20s, they still went with a woman nearing 40 thinking this was her best shot at love?

Well, now Reality Steve -- who has been uncannily right in his Bachelor franchise predictions  over the years -- reported on Friday that 13 of those suitors are gone. One, of course, is our new Bachelor, Matt James. The other dozen are just apparently gone for unspecified reasons.

While listing the men he claims are gone from the show, Steve added that there could be more that he can't verify. He also didn't go into specifics as to why these guys were cut, though he claims to know some reasons.

Could be COVID-19 testing, could be they don't want to date someone who's 39 years old, or they're in a relationship now, or another opportunity they can't walk away from.

With "The Bachelorette" season to come filming in a format more akin to "Big Brother," with everyone sequestered in a house together for a month or so, that might be more time off from life than possible for some of these guys. Plus, they thought they'd be done filming by now, not just getting started.

And while he doesn't know anything yet about that final cast list, Steve did say he was able to verify ten new castmembers. "Of the 'ten' new guys that I have, every one is 30 or older," he tweeted. "So they definitely did Clare better in the age department during recasting."

Reportedly, Clare's season has either already begun filming or they're just about to and the cast is still quarantining. Either way, someone knows the full cast list. It's just a matter of when ABC wants to share it with the public.

If they are still quarantining, then it is possible one or more of the guys will test positive for coronavirus and the team will have to tag in some more of those extra fellas they brought along. Wonder if they're all over 30 years old? We'll all find out this fall at the latest.

Due to its unexpected shift to the fall schedule, "The Bachelorette" will now air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC so as not to step on the toes of Monday's retooled (without Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews) "Dancing with the Stars."

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