The Bachelor franchise has given a platform to some truly horrendous personalities over the years.
Luke Parker, “Queen” Victoria Larson, freakin’ Juan Pablo … the list goes on and on.
But many viewers believe that current contestant Shanae Ankney has not only earned a place on the Mt. Rushmore of Bacholor Villains, threy think she’s claimed her place as the very worst contestant in the history of the franchise.
That’s a strong statement, but if you’ve been watching her on Clayton Echard’s season, you know that Shanae has been putting a lot of effort into proving that she’s as evil as they come.
She started, of course, by mocking Elizabeth Corrigan’s ADHD.
Evil triumphed over good in that scenario, and Clayton wound up sending Elizabeth home and giving Shanae a rose.
Ankney briefly acted like she would turn over a new leaf now that her garlic butter shrimp-fueled feud with Elizabeth had come to an end.
Of course, that turned out not to be the case.
The villainy continued as Shanae crashed a group date even though her team lost the prestigious Bachelor Bowl.
Not only did she steal time with Clayton, Ankney compketed her ridiculous tantrum by hurling the winning team’s trophy into a pond.
Naturally, Clayton caught wind of this behavior, and it was then that Shanae proved she’s not just evil — she’s an evil genius.
Ankney conjured up some crocodile tears and issued an apology to the other contestants — later admitting in a confessional segment that it was all BS.
She might be a terrible person, but Shanae is one hell of an actress!
Despite her absolutely batsh-t behavior, Shanae scored another rose and survived another week.
At a certain point, you have to blame Clayton for allowing this insanity to continue.
But to his credit, he’s just as horrified as everyone else as he watches the episodes and learns the true extent of Shanae’s awfulness.
“It’s honestly scary how manipulative Shanae is like is she secretly a serial killer,” reads a comment that Clayton retweeted during Monday night’s episode.
“Lock her up! She’s killed all my credibility already,” the former pro football player added (jokingly, we’re sure).
It’s funny, and all, but Shanae’s ongoing reign of terror raises some serious questions about Clayton’s abilities as a judge of character.
If he were more open to what the signals that the other women in the house are sending — including when they explicitly roasted Ankney during Monday’s comedy-centric group date — then he wouldn’t be in the position of allowing one bad apple to spoil his entire season.
Longtime citizens of Bachelor nation know that this sort of thing has happened before.
Luke Parker and Jed Wyatt, for example, were both bad guys who made it much farther than they should have during Hannah Brown’s season.
Hell, Jed one Hannah’s final rose!
But in most cases, the villains are much more subtle than Shanae, who seems to delight in getting away with so much horrendous behavior right out in the open.
And if Clayton doesn’t do something about this situation soon, he may find that he’s lost the support of both viewers and the women who had been competing for nhis heart.
