One of the strangest stories to ever come out of Bachelor Nation, the community that follows and watches ABC’s "Bachelor" dating shows, has to be the bizarre paternity fight between former Bachelor Clayton Echard and Laura Owens, a former fling of the reality TV star. This story is salacious and dramatic and has many elements of the blockbuster Hollywood movie “Fatal Attraction” that scared every man in America in 1987.
In the movie, married man Dan Gallagher, played by Michael Douglas, meets Alex Forrest, a sexy editor portrayed by Glenn Close, who entices him into an affair and then proceeds to make his life a living hell, ending in her death at his wife’s hand.
The similarities between Echard’s experience and Gallagher’s are significant. While not including any boiled family pets, the harrowing story of what can happen to a man who isn’t careful about who he has dalliances with — allegations of fathering twins through fellatio, going to media to “expose” him, publishing private texts, and taking him to family court for paternity only to concede there are now no babies — should be front-page news in the entertainment world. But it isn’t. The question is, why?
One YouTuber and host of the popular podcast "Bachelor Rush Hour," Dave Neal, has been the near-lone voice trying to tell the true story of false allegations, vexatious litigation, and non-stop harassment of Echard. For his trouble, Neal is now the subject of Owens’ attempts to silence him for reporting the public documents at the heart of this case. Neal is facing a harassment lawsuit for his efforts. While a judge denied Owens a protective order against Neal, whom she has never met, he still has to go to court and present evidence to a judge showing that reporting news and public documents is not illegal.
Owens filed for an order of protection against Neal on Nov. 1, stating, “Mr. Neal has been posting defamatory content against me multiple times daily and I want it to stop immediately. He has been warned that if he does not stop making this content and defaming me in an effort to gain favor with Mr. Echard that I would be obtaining an order, yet it has not stopped him.”
It does not seem to have occurred to Owens that Neal enjoys a constitutional right of a free press to report on news stories and public court records without government interference, regardless of whether the story's subject likes it.
Judge Firdaus Dordi of the L.A. Superior Court denied Owens’ petition, writing, “The allegations in the petition are conclusory, not specific as to date, time, message, and potentially involve core first amendment concerns. Restricting potentially protected speech without a hearing could constitute a prior restraint. A hearing will be necessary to ascertain if the communications are not protected, amount to harassment, cyberstalking, revenge porn, defamation, etc.”
These allegations by Owens have required Neal to obtain a lawyer and pay thousands for his defense of the allegations. A thorough review of Neal’s work on this story shows that he has done nothing but report public documents, including information Owens herself made public like a photograph of her allegedly pregnant belly that Neal found posted on her public Dropbox that she now claims is “revenge porn,” She showed the same photo in a broadcasted court hearing on Nov. 3.
Neal uncovered that Owens has been in court battles with at least two other men alleging pregnancies and demanding child support and paternity tests. The Maricopa County docket shows that Owens kept her former boyfriend, Greg Gillespie, in family court for four years after alleging she was pregnant with his twins. Gillespie has reportedly spent over $100,000 defending himself from her claims. His evidence included testimony showing sonogram photos Owens gave Gillespie that were found on a reverse image search from 2014.
"Plaintiff provided a sonographic image to Defendant on August 6, 2021. A reverse Google Images search revealed the images were identical to a sonogram found on a blog post from 2014." Owens then tried to coerce Gillespie by claiming she would get an abortion if he would agree to date her, according to the filing. "As absurd as it sounds, Plaintiff has attempted to weaponize this civil litigation in order to force Defendant to date her."
Gillespie's lawyer says the sonogram Owens sent him of his "twins" was found on a reverse Google search from a video from 2014 pic.twitter.com/A3roEOLGJN
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) January 10, 2024
Former "Bachelor" star Echard, the current target of Owens’ litigation spree, was accused of fathering more twins with her after an incident that has been described as oral sex with Owens after she used his realtor services to show her houses. Shortly after, Owens began texting him, alleging a pregnancy and demanding a relationship with him or she would go to the press. When she didn’t get what she wanted, Owens did go to the press anonymously, and as the #MeToo era dictates, the media ran with it and painted Echard as the cad.
A judge awarded a harassment order to Echard against Owens on Nov. 3 of this year, finding that she did harass him by threatening to go to the media and sending him over 500 texts and emails after being told to stop. The family court has still not made her prove paternity, and now, as more people in the media have started to pay attention, Owens has filed a motion to dismiss her paternity case against Echard, claiming she is “no longer pregnant.”
Echard’s lawyers have responded to that motion contesting it and demanding to know how she is “no longer pregnant” since Arizona law would require fetal death certificates for terminated pregnancies or miscarriages after twenty weeks. Owens claimed to be at 24 weeks at a recent court hearing on Nov. 3.
"A hospital, abortion clinic, physician or midwife shall submit a completed fetal death certificate to the state registrar for registration within seven days after the fetal death for each fetal death occurring in this state after a gestational period of twenty completed weeks," according to Arizona statute 36-329.
Echard has always maintained that Owens could not have been pregnant because they did not have intercourse. His lawyers have also submitted a motion for sanctions, asking the court to punish what they say is malicious litigation.
“Petitioner filed the underlying action for an improper purpose without medical evidence to support her claim that she was pregnant and/or that she was pregnant by Respondent," the motion reads. "Petitioner could not have become pregnant from the limited encounter the parties had and therefore premised this entire action on a fiction.”
Echard and his attorneys have never believed there was a pregnancy and have alleged that Owens even went so far as to wear a fake moon bump in court. The motion for sanctions filed on Jan. 3 goes on to state, “Petitioner wore a fake stomach (moon bump) to appear pregnant and claimed, with no scientific support, that she was 24 weeks pregnant with Respondent’s twins and due on February 14, 2024.” A video of Owens with a visibly enlarged middle can be seen on "Law Talk with Mike" here.
Perhaps the best evidence that Owens was never pregnant to begin with is two paternity tests that reportedly showed “little to no fetal DNA” according to legal filings. Owens claimed a third test went missing in transit and has refused to take a fourth test. But if she was pregnant, the state of Arizona should investigate what happened to the alleged babies she now says don’t exist.
Owens has spent the last several months sending threatening letters to anyone who reports on this public case, which could explain why so many in the entertainment media have remained silent. Despite all the evidence that points to Owens as a serial accuser, the entertainment media has not picked up the story.
“This case was too heavy for celebrity gossip channels and not big enough for national media,” Neal told PJ Media. “I’ve had a hard time getting the attention of people.” Neal reached out to Rolling Stone, whose journalists received all the evidence but chose not to cover it. It's difficult to believe that the entertainment media would be so silent if the sexes were reversed and a well-known Bachelorette was being dragged through court with ridiculous claims by a man who was deemed a harasser by a judge.
Someone has to stop the malicious targeting of the men involved in this case and tough lessons need to be learned: If you do not want the media reporting on your litigious behavior, it is advisable to not file lawsuits that are open to public scrutiny. While demanding "privacy," Owens began this public fight by going to the media, publishing her own op-ed under her name, giving Ted X talks about being a victim of domestic abuse (which is unverifiable), and hosting a podcast with a website named after her at LauraMichelleOwens.com. Despite her public presence, Owens claims she is not a public figure and is entitled to more privacy than her target, Echard, whom she has accused repeatedly in national news outlets by name.
Contrary to Owens' opinion, it is neither defamatory nor harassing to report on public lawsuits or publish the motions or exhibits in the public record. Neither is it against any law to have negative opinions on the behaviors people exhibit in public. Those in the "Bachelor" reporting circles should join the chorus now and speak up for Echard and Neal and every other person targeted by Owens and try to redeem themselves for their previous cowardice.
There is a concerted effort to shut down stories that show women behaving badly due to the popular culture’s obsession with “believing women” in service to the #MeToo overreach. I have written a book about the absurdity of believing women without evidence that shows the folly of this idea. “Believe Evidence: The Death of Due Process From Salome to #MeToo" is a warning siren to all who might fall for the lie that women never fabricate and dissemble to harm men.
Real victims of domestic violence and sexual assault deserve to be heard and amplified and cannot be as long as people like Owens take the space that should be reserved for true victims, not abusers. In case you had any doubt of the veracity of Owens’ claims, consider this email to a judge below, in violation of the rule of ex parte communication, wildly accusing Gillespie's lawyer, now also Echard's lawyer, of drugging and sexually assaulting her.
During the Gillespie case, Ms. Owens also sent a letter to the judge ex parte accusing Gillespie's lawyer of drugging and sexually assaulting her. Be very careful who you swipe right on, folks. #BachelorNation #ClaytonEchard pic.twitter.com/kmyUrFgSX5
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) January 10, 2024
This is just one piece of evidence among scores of others spanning years that contain wild and unverified claims Owens has lobbed at her targets, and no one in the mainstream media has bothered to report it. Laura Owens should pay reparations, whether through sanctions imposed by the court or civil judgments to the victims of her machinations. It’s past time for women who lie to be held accountable for those lies in our justice system. It rarely if ever happens, and that is a crime.
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