If you’re looking for your next podcast (and even if you’re not), you have to listen to Love Trapped (even if you’re not a fan of The Bachelor). The hook is a hook-up between former Bachelor and real-estate agent Clayton Echard, and Laura Owens. Sarah Lang, font of knowledge of all things Bachelor, breaks it down…
OPINION
“All I’ve done is get pregnant by the f**king Bachelor!”.
That’s what Laura Owens shouted at a team of armed policemen just before 7am on January 29 2025 in Scottsdale, Arizona. They had just ushered Laura from her ‘casita’ – a self-contained apartment behind her parents’ house – into the main house. Bodycam captured Laura shouting at, swearing at, and giving the middle finger to the officers, who appeared calm. She accused them of pointing guns at her (the bodycam footage captures the officers confirming they are armed, but their guns are holstered), even threatening to report them – to the, er, police? The footage ended during the handover to detectives there to speak to Laura, and search the premises.
Audio from that bodycam footage is where the podcast Love Trapped begins – a tale that centres on Laura Owens’ allegation that she was pregnant with former Bachelor Clayton Echard’s twins.
Love Trapped recently led the Apple Podcast Charts for Top Show, and is still number one on Top Series. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. Just as you think it can’t get any wilder, it does, then it does again.
In fact, you may be tempted to listen at work, or leave the dishes undone, because it’s that good. If you’re ‘binge listening’, tell everyone in your household not to bother you for an entire day (the 12 episodes are around 50 minutes each, plus there are nine shorter bonus audios).
Love Trapped is a podcast series that feels more like an audio documentary. Journalist-presenter Stephani Young has done an exceptional job, with each episode re-orienting the listener and telling a story within a story. Her narration wraps around excerpts of interviews of people including Clayton, Mike Marraccini (Laura’s ex-boyfriend) and his wife Danielle, plus Clayton’s lawyer Gregg Woodnick, who is also the lawyer for Laura’s former fling Greg Gillespie. Gillespie has said he won’t give an interview until, if, and when Laura is behind bars, but was okay to have his story out there. I won’t get into the details of what happened to Mike and Greg, but their stories – especially Mike’s – are shocking.
Love Trapped also has excellent excerpts from interviews with content creators who not only covered this story but brought things to light, particularly Dave Neal, Megan Fox, the online sleuth known as ‘SchnitzelNinja’, and Steve Carbone (aka Reality Steve). There is also audio from trials, depositions and that bodycam footage. Laura declined to give an interview for the podcast, despite being asked early on. Family and friends said no or didn’t respond. So a voice actor reads some of Laura’s texts, emails, blog posts and other statements. Laura maintains that she was pregnant with twins, that Clayton was the father and that she later miscarried those twins.
Reader, this is a serious subject, but also, I’m finally able to put my embarrassingly extensive knowledge of The Bachelor franchise to good use.
Clayton was a disliked Bachelor, because he mishandled overnight dates with his three ‘finalists’. He also got a bad edit, and was the only Bachelor to be turned down by his final pick, Susie Evans. He got hate comments and death threats on social media. He and Susie got back together later before the live finale and stayed together for a year. When they broke up, Clayton moved to Arizona to become a realtor.
Stranger than Fiction
What happens next is wild, as explained in the podcast. Hopefully my story is something to refer back to if (well, when) your brain explodes while listening to the podcast, or you could read this then listen to the podcast.
Laura Owens, 36, is the daughter of radio legend Ronn Owens, and radio newscaster/podcaster Jan Black. She lived with her parents and worked for the family businesses: mainly Quartet Farms (they buy, sell and lease high-end horses). She also co-hosted a podcast with her mother, competed at horse shows and was an aspiring songwriter. Her family dynamics, as you can see on the bodycam, is, well, in my opinion, unusually interdependent.
In May 2023, Laura contacted Clayton on LinkedIn, asking him to help her look for investment properties, and they viewed some. Clayton says she sent him flirty messages and he thought, no big deal, he’d be professional and she could flirt if she wants. He wanted to get his first deal and first commission. He says he remembers her saying she didn’t watch The Bachelor.
The Fateful Hook-up
This is Clayton’s account of the evening of May 20. After she sent him a photo of her bottom in tight riding leggings, he invited her over. According to his testimony, she said she didn’t want to have sex that night, but did give him two blowjobs. According to him, there was some grinding of genitals but no penetrative sex. Although her story about this night would change, her messages to Clayton indicated they didn’t have sex. Public records show she had messaged a pregnancy support line seeking plan B, saying ‘I was consensually intimate with a partner although we did not have intercourse’.)
The next afternoon, after showing her some properties, he says he told her he felt bad because he didn’t communicate his intentions the previous night. He said it was a one-time thing. He offered to pass her onto another agent and she said no. Clayton says that she then tried to convince him to be open to dating, and had started crying, until he said, look, no means no. He says her face went stone cold, she stared at him, ‘smiled weirdly’, and said ‘have a great day’.
According to court filings, testimony and communications discussed in the podcast, Laura started sending Clayton a large number of texts, asking him to date, with him saying no.
Clayton then removed himself from being her realtor, saying he’d no longer respond to her messages. She responded with a text saying, “when I went to the bathroom afterwards [post oral sex], some of your fluids were down there”. Her texts continued about possibly taking Plan B [the morning after pill], and perhaps leaving things up to God. She texted him that Plan B can still work five days later, and this was the last day it could work, saying, “if I don’t hear back from you, I’m not going to take Plan B”. Though he felt uncomfortable being asked to decide, he told her he supported her taking Plan B if she was comfortable with that. She kept texting him, as many as 25 times a day. He blocked her number. She began texting from her ‘work phone’. He blocked that number. He says he’d eventually block a dozen numbers.
A Shocking Result
Just 11 days after the hook-up, she emailed Clayton an image of a positive pregnancy test. He says he thought there was no way he could have impregnated her. He asked her to come over, handed her a pregnancy test that he’d bought, and she agreed to take the urine test in his bathroom. She did. It came back with two lines. Positive.
He said sorry for not believing her.
Clayton thought there was a 0.1% chance he got her pregnant, but couldn’t fully rule it out. He believed she hadn’t had sex with anyone else.
Looking For Proof
According to Clayton, Laura scheduled an ultrasound which she later cancelled, said her sister couldn’t make it, cancelled again. She said she’d reschedule it, but didn’t want Clayton there in case he potentially harmed her.
The emails continued. She said she’d given him ‘so much proof’. ‘Proof’ was mostly photos – and some videos including one where she is standing side on, with a bloated stomach.
Some emails said: “I will not consider an abortion if you don’t want to date.” “I will have an abortion if we try things out.” She even drew up a ‘dating contract’ between Party A and Party B that she wanted him to sign, saying ‘if you date me for one week, then I will have an abortion, but if you don’t date me, then I’m having the kid’. He didn’t sign.
The Media Finds Out…
On August 1 2023, Laura did something that changed everything. She filed a Family Court petition to establish paternity, which made the dispute public record. In Arizona, to file for a paternity case, you only require an affidavit, not proof of pregnancy. The proof would be an agreement between parties, or DNA confirmation. He had to file a response, and said she was making up the whole thing – an allegation she continues to refute, maintaining she was pregnant with his twins.
She sent Clayton an email saying, “I have two major media outlets who want to publish the story. I asked them to hold it until I gave the final word”. Unless they met up and talked, that is. “It is really, really important to do it now.”
In September 2023, she told her story anonymously to the Sun, sending them some of the messages sent by Clayton.People who disliked Clayton on The Bachelor had a field-day.
Learning a lesson
Dave Neal is a stand-up comedian who also covers Bachelor-related news and pop culture on his YouTube channel, and in his podcast the Rush Hour. So when he saw that The Sun had published a story about a paternity scandal – something never before seen in Bachelor Nation – you betcha he started making videos about the case. Despite the legal threats Laura sent him, Dave believed Clayton and refused to stop following and telling the story, saying ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’.
Laura would learn that, once you let the public in, it’s not easy to get them out. Dave, other content creators like Megan Fox and Steve Carbone (Reality Steve), the Bachelor Nation community – and the growing Justice For Clayton community, including the anonymous ‘SchnitzelNinja’ – well, they sleuthed very well. As one user commented under the ‘anonymous woman’ post on Reddit: “you must not know that Redditors are some of the best detectives on the Internet”.
Laura Owens has consistently maintained she became pregnant and later miscarried. “I intend to meet these accusations head-on — and I will defend myself, fully and relentlessly, through every step of this process,” she said in a public statement last year.
And from this point in the story, things only get wilder…
Love Trapped is available on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
MAIN IMAGE CREDIT: ABC/THE BACHELOR
__________________________________
About the Author:
, you have to listen to Love Trapped (even if you’re not a The Bachelor fan).){kind=link}