Michelle Young set the record straight on the latest episode of The Bachelorette. At least with regard to one burning question this season.
She made it very clear to those vying for her heart that she did not sleep with suitor Joe Coleman prior to arrival on the Season 18 set.
Now, meanwhile, we're here to set the record straight on who Young may very well go to bed with inside of a Fantasy Suite down the line... as we can finally confirm the identity of her final four contestants.
Yes, The Bachelorette spoilers are to come, if you haven't figured that out. Now's your chance to bounce if you don't want the ending of Michelle's journey revealed many weeks in advance.
Going once ... going twice ... okay, we good?
First, let's start with the alleged winner.
According to The Man Who Knows All (aka Reality Steve), Nayte Olukoya (below) doesn't just end up as the last suitor standing - he also ends up proposing to Young on the season finale.
We can't say for certain whether the two are still engaged, however. Given the recent breakup of Katie Thurston and Blake Moynes, you know how quickly passions can fizzle out.
Anyway. As for the other three men who will advance to Young's wildly-coveted final four?
In a hilarious development, someone on Reddit says her mother was a flight attendant on a chartered flight that included these four gentlemen, and she was all too excited to reveal their identities.
According to the screenshots of text messages on this social media platform, Brandon Jones, Rodney Mathews, and, yes, Joel Coleman round out Michelle’s final four along with Nayte.
Here's Brandon, a native of Portland, Oregon ...
... and Rodney, who currently lives in Los Angeles.
He's 29 years old, and is an athlete in his own right, having played football for Fresno State University.
He currently works as a sales representative for Cintas, and is obviously another strong candidate:
Finally, here's the 28-year-old Joel Coleman, who's already been in the celebrity gossip headlines quite a bit this fall, thanks to one very interesting connection:
As it turns out, Joe was named Mr. Basketball in Minnesota back in 2011, an honor for which Young finished as runner-up that same year on the female side.
These are likely the four men that Michelle takes on hometown dates, as it it's been confirmed that The Bachelorette will take that step this season due to vaccination mandates and what not.
Three of these men will also have a chance to sleep with Young, if she's down for that of course.
Here's the thing, however:
You'll notice that Clayton Echard is NOT included on the list.
And yet: It's all but confirmed officially at this point that Clayton Echard will be the next Bachelor. Not one of the guys above.
As a result, a bunch of fans are upset that producers went ahead and chose Echard, rather than one of Michelle's faves.
Also at issue is the fact that Clayton stands out from the final four in another way.
“So when are we gonna have the discussion about all of the F4 being MOC and the next bachelor being a white guy who didn’t make it to hometowns??” one Redditor wrote in response.
“I’m so irritated that the final four are all men of color and we still ended up with a white bachelor."
"Nothing wrong with being white," another said, "but the show wants to go back to their old ways."
"I feel like they were going to back to a traditional white lead no matter what,” added another.
Others were pissed for the same reason.
“Oh after this they were gonna go back to a white lead no matter what. If they had to resort to pulling any random white man off the street for the role, they would have,” a third person wrote.
“Yet we still ended up w another white lead,” a fourth person agreed.
Not too hard to understand why these people are upset, is it?
ABC has not even confirmed that Clayton will be the next Bachelor, even though Echard himself has said this will be the case.
“Clayton stood out right off the bat,” a source previously tells Us Weekly of the 28-year-old Missouri native.
“Producers ended up going with him because they believed he was the best fit for the role."
As for why he got picked, given the inevitable backlash that ABC had to know was coming for the reasons we just said:
"They wanted to switch things up and go with someone new and someone who hasn’t been in the spotlight yet.”
We'll see if that decision pays off.