I Am the Anonymous Woman | EP 4

**Stephanie Young** (0:01)
On September 18th, 2023, the story hit the press. The headline read, Baby Mama Drama? Bachelor Clayton Echard's ex-fling demands he take paternity test in court case after she becomes pregnant with twins.

**Diana Cooper** (0:16)
My name is Diana Cooper, and I am a former reporter with the US Sun. And back in 2023, I broke the story of Laura Owens and Clayton Echard alleging that she was pregnant with his twins.

**Stephanie Young** (0:31)
Diana received a tip, an email from a woman in Arizona with a shocking claim.

**Diana Cooper** (0:37)
A lot of people on our team were like, is it real? Like when you have to question something, it's kind of like, okay, maybe readers are going to be just as interested as we are.

**Stephanie Young** (0:46)
The readers were very interested. Under the headline, the Sun posted multiple pictures of Clayton from his time on The Bachelor. You can imagine what this felt like for him. He was trying to leave his bachelor past behind. Now he was in the spotlight again, and not in a good way.

**Clayton Echard** (1:05)
As soon as he saw the article, I put my hands on my head and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be such a mess.

**Stephanie Young** (1:13)
Clayton's phone started blowing up with texts and DMs.

**Clayton Echard** (1:17)
It was nerve wracking at the time because I assume most of these DMs were going to be negative.

**Stephanie Young** (1:22)
But they weren't all negative. One of them turned out to be extremely important.

**Clayton Echard** (1:28)
So I was just scrolling through my Instagram DMs and all of a sudden I see this message from a woman named Ashley.

**Stephanie Young** (1:34)
The message came in just 24 hours after the story broke. And this is what it said.

**Clayton Echard** (1:39)
Hey, you need to look into this court case. You're not the only one. Look up Owens v. Gillespie in the AZ court docs. Two plus years ago, she accused my boyfriend of getting her pregnant with twins.

**Stephanie Young** (1:57)
I'm Stephanie Young, and this is Love Trapped. The day the news broke, Clayton was actually on his first day of a new job, a hosting gig for a local TV show called Pickleball Paddle Battle.

**Clayton Echard** (2:36)
The thing is, I don't even play Pickleball, but when the opportunity came through, I figured, hey, why not? It'll be a fun gig, we'll have a good time, and I'm not going to pass this up.

**Stephanie Young** (2:46)
The day before filming started, he posted on social media saying he'd be on set that week. Then he got an email, the kind of email he'd been getting all summer. It was from Laura Owens. He'd come to expect them, but he hadn't gotten used to them.

**Clayton Echard** (3:04)
She said, look, I'm going public if I don't hear back from you. I've given you enough chances, but now it's time for this story to be heard and for people to find out who you really are.

**Stephanie Young** (3:13)
He'd been issued this ultimatum a few times before, Laura demanding he engage with her and threatening to go public if he didn't. Clayton ignored her message, but this time, Laura wasn't bluffing.

**Diana Cooper** (3:27)
Laura sent us a tip to the Sun's tip line email.

**Stephanie Young** (3:32)
That's Diana Cooper again, the one who broke the story. At the time, she was writing nearly a story a day for the Sun, mostly about the Bachelor. When she got the tip email from Laura Owens, it had a lot of attachments, like court documents, police reports, and photos. It looked legit.

**Diana Cooper** (3:50)
In the beginning, I was convinced. I was like, okay, she had all these dates. She had proof in email.

**Stephanie Young** (3:59)
Clayton was getting ready for his first day of filming when he got an email from Diana Cooper.

**Clayton Echard** (4:04)
She wrote, Hey, I've been talking with Laura Owens, and we're going to release a story today at this time.

**Stephanie Young** (4:12)
Diana needed his response within the next few hours.

**Clayton Echard** (4:16)
I have done a phone call and I said, this is a complete lie. This woman is lying out of her teeth. She has no evidence.

**Stephanie Young** (4:22)
But Laura provided the tabloid with court documents and a very compelling narrative. It was enough for the Sun to run with. Diana published it that evening, and she sent Clayton the link. He was on set in between filming when he opened the article.

**Clayton Echard** (4:38)
I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do? First thing I think, I'm like, I gotta go tell the Pickleball Paddle Battle. I gotta tell these people. Like, it's day one. They've all literally just met me. And I've gotta explain what's going on. I can't just like breeze over this. This is gonna get right in front of them.