The Bachelorette’s Cam discusses his time on the show, why he isn’t a villain

The Bachelorette’s Cam Ayala was a polarizing contestant this season but perspectives may change when you hear his side of the story.

Cam Ayala’s exit from The Bachelorette was certainly a polarizing one. Many fans had him painted as a villain, others believed he was a victim of a bad edit. Hearing him explain his time on the show sheds a light on what was going through his mind on his final night. Once you know his point of view, it’s far easier to understand his puzzling end.

A large amount of Bachelor Nation was critical of how Cam handled himself on The Bachelorette (Hand up, myself included). After speaking with him, everything we saw on the show made more sense. Cam never had the time, or perhaps the timing, to continue his journey with Hannah. That doesn’t mean his Bachelor journey is done, though. He’s a genuine, good person and as he says himself in this interview, the Bachelor in Paradise setting might suit him a little bit better. Plus, we all know Luke P is the true villain of the season.

Cam has been busy since his final rose ceremony. He was just named the Lymphatic Education and Research Network‘s celebrity ambassador. You can read up on that here and congratulate him on his Twitter or Instagram for this accomplishment.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByBBHhaAwde/

We’ll pick up the interview where things started to go downhill for Cam on The Bachelorette – The tailgate party.

Parts of this interview have been edited for length purposes. 

FanSided: I really want to hear your side of what went down on that last episode. Take us through the Tailgate party fiasco from your point of view.

Cam: The biggest misconception is that I had a lot of time to speak to Hannah one on one. I really didn’t. When I had crashed that group date, it was really fast – in and out, maybe two minutes of conversation and on the group date after that, my time was cut short when Jonathan came in. So before the tailgate party, I told the guys:

“Look. I have something important that I have to discuss with Hannah. Something very serious in my life that I’ve dealt with for the past 15 years and as of recently, this issue has been one of the downfalls of my past two relationships. So I would be doing Hannah, myself and frankly, you guys a disservice if I didn’t talk about this thing. I promise not to take up a lot of time and if you would all just give me a couple of minutes, I’d really appreciate it.”

This was important for me to talk about and there was a chance Hannah would react the same way that my past two girlfriends did, in that my condition (Lymphedema) was too much to handle. There was a chance I could have been sent home before the ceremony, so I told the guys if that does happen, I wish them all the best of luck.

I did have the best of intentions and I really just wanted to be transparent. About 15 or 20 minutes into the Bachelorette tailgate party, I pulled Hannah aside and gave her the rundown of what I’ve been through with my condition, when I was diagnosed and how it all transpired. From the 13 surgeries to having a scare when my doctors wanted to amputate my leg. I got a call at the last minute from another hospital that said they could save my leg with another surgery. While that was happening, my parents were going through a divorce, my grandmother had just passed away and because I was recovering from surgery I had to re-home my 80-pound, 10-month-old giant Schnauzer puppy.

None of this was to evoke pity, like the guys were saying, but to let her know that at my age, I’ve already hit my rock bottom. I’ve rebounded and it’s made me a stronger man. Hannah mentioned that she wanted a bold, strong man and I said to her that I need just as strong of a woman because at the end of this whole journey – if it’s going to be you and I and we’re walking to the altar and exchanging vows – in sickness and in health, I need to know you believe them as well.

She was very accepting of it all and even shared some stories from her life with me and I felt that we had addressed the elephant in the room. I felt really good about the trajectory of our relationship so I went back to the tailgate party and everything was good – Until it wasn’t. (Laughs)

An hour or so later, Hannah approached me and said: “we need to talk.” That’s when she told me that Mike had pulled her aside and told her that the reason why I was telling her my story was because I was looking for a “pity rose.” I’ve gone on record about never saying anything about a pity rose. Those words never came out of my mouth.

There are two reasons why I told Hannah what I did: First, Out of transparency – I wanted her to know what has made me the man I am today, and secondly, I was considering any future group dates. Knowing that she’s an Alabama girl who loves football, I was under the assumption that a potential future group date might be football or something physical. If we were playing a football game on a group date, I’d rather let her know in advance that I wouldn’t be able to compete because I’m still recovering from surgery. To me, it would have seemed more calculated and manipulative if I only told her right before the event started. To me, I felt like I needed to be up-front and transparent with her before she decided if I was someone she could see a future with.

It was unfortunate, the way it all happened, but I don’t blame her for it. At the time, she had a stronger connection with Mike – she had more time with him. So she had to make a conscious decision between trusting Mike or trusting me at that moment and unfortunately for me, she went with Mike. That’s kind of how my whole demise went down.

After hearing your side, it makes a lot more sense. It came down to timing and a misunderstanding, I think. Mostly timing, when you factor in everything going on with Mike as well. On that note – and you took some heat for this online – I don’t think you knew the seriousness of the conversation he and Hannah were having earlier in the episode when you cut in on their time together. Now that you do, was that hard to watch back? 

Yeah. Oh yeah. That was very tough to watch. Up until that point, Mike and I had a pretty good relationship. He’s a Texas boy like me, we both played college basketball. We had a lot in common and got along pretty well. We shared some personal stories as well, but he never shared the one about the miscarriage he had with his ex-girlfriend. I literally had no idea. When I thought it was my time to go in and talk to Hannah, I had no idea of the context of their discussion. I couldn’t hear any of it. When I found out after the fact that that was what they were talking about – yeah. I felt bad. I would never want to intrude on anyone’s conversation, especially one that serious in nature.

That makes sense. I think after everyone watching had a minute or two to cool down, people realized that you obviously didn’t know the nature of their conversation. Have you spoken to Mike since? 

Yeah me and Mike are fine. We squashed the beef, so to speak. There’s an old saying – “You can’t drive forward while staring in the rear view,” so it was unfortunate in the moment but we were both quick to forgive and move on. There’s no ill will there. I think everyone deserves to find love and I hope that’s what Mike finds.

What has the reception been like from Bachelorette fans since being on the show? 

For the first three weeks – all of my time on [The Bachelorette] there was definitely a villainous vibe. (Laughs) I’ve seen past seasons so I kind of understand Bachelor Nation vernacular, like “villain,” so that was kind of the general consensus. Looking back, it’s so weird.

When all my friends saw it air they were like “Dude, you never talk in the third person. What is this whole ABC thing? Where did that come from?” (Laughs) Honestly, it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things I said when I was doing those mansion interviews. I guess in the context of those conversations, it made sense to me at the time to say it but seeing how it all aired out, it did seem pretty ridiculous.

My buddies joked that they made a Bachelorette drinking game out of it. Every time I said “ABC” they had to take a drink while watching the show.

(Laughs) That would be a pretty fun game! What about Bachelor/Bachelorette alumni? Have any of them reached out? 

My biggest supporter, who I was kind of surprised about, was Evan Bass from Jojo’s season and Bachelor in Paradise – where he met his now-wife Carly. He’s been awesome on Twitter. Some other supporters were Ashley I and Jared. After my last episode, they said some pretty kind things about me on Twitter as well. They were defending me, saying I wasn’t looking for a pity rose and that I was legitimately going through a lot with my health. It’s kind of cool to get the support from Bachelor alum that are pretty well liked.

People who aren’t really well liked – people like Nick Viall – had some pretty choice words to say about me but, you know, I don’t think he’s the type of guy I would hang out with anyway so I don’t really care about his opinions.

(Laughs) It seems like you have a really good awareness of how things go down in the Bachelor world and a great self-awareness of how everything was portrayed with you on the show.

Full disclosure, I think my last tweet before this was in like, 2012 or something. I wasn’t big on Twitter. Getting back into that took some time and man, some people are pretty harsh! (Laughs)

Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s most of Twitter. 

I just laugh it off. Why waste your time judging someone you don’t know?

True! Moving forward, are you looking to make a trip to Paradise this summer? 

I’d definitely be open to it. Obviously, I don’t know anything yet but given the opportunity, I would be open to it. I haven’t watched any previous season of [BiP]. I didn’t know the structure of it or that it was all contestants from previous seasons. When I left Hannah’s season, I was curious so I did some research and I think, honestly, the group setting environment is a little more my style.

I’m the type of person who – Like, if you and I are good buddies and we’re at a social gathering and there’s a really cute girl that you’re interested in, I’ll never be the type of guy to compete with you. So it was very interesting to be in an environment with myself and 29 other guys all vying for Hannah’s time.

I got accused of being calculated, but in my opinion, in that setting, when your timing is so limited, you kind of do have to be strategic and calculated. You can still be organic and go with the flow, but you kind of have to create time. When you do get that time, you better have a general idea of what you want to talk about.

I get that. Everything has to be a little predetermined on The Bachelorette. You have to make the most of your time. 

Exactly. So when they said I was calculated, I thought that was kind of a negative twist on what everyone else was doing anyway.

I know you’re a basketball fan. Who are you taking in the NBA Finals? 

(Laughs) Seeing as who I’m talking to right now, I’ll go with the Raptors! I’m a big fan of Kawhi Leonard and I love an underdog. I’m definitely not a fan of monopolies in professional sports so I would love for the Raptors to get a dub.

Ayy! Well, you’ve won me over! 

The Bachelorette continues every Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Be sure to follow Cam on Twitter and Instagram.