No, Clint Arlis and JJ Lane were not an item Fri 14 January 2022 14:35 Ellissa Bain

Tributes are flooding social media for The Bachelorette star Clint Arlis who has sadly passed away this week.

The 34-year-old appeared on Season 11 of the ABC show which saw Kaitlyn Bristowe as the Bachelorette.

Clint’s sister Taylor Lulek announced the tragic news on Facebook, writing: “It is with great sadness, to tell you that my family has lost my best friend and older brother Clint on the morning of January 11th. Please respect our family’s privacy as we try to cope with this great loss.”

However, she did not give any more details about his passing, and at the time of writing this, his cause of death is unknown.

Now, people are looking back at Clint’s season of The Bachelorette in which everyone wrongly thought he had a fling with fellow contestant JJ Lane. Here’s what really happened…

‘Brokeback Bachelor’ explained

During Season 11 of The Bachelorette, the show released a promotion video that referred to Clint as the “Brokeback Bachelor” and made it seem like there was a budding romance between them.

In the promo clip, Clint said “falling in love with a man never crossed my mind”. Then, a montage of clips showed the pair getting close.

Further on in the video, Clint revealed “we’ve got very close in the shower,” fuelling speculation that the pair were about to become an item.

He then added “Kaitlyn’s not my girlfriend anymore” and “I love JJ” as the voiceover shouted: “This will blow your mind.”

Fans were convinced that the promo video meant that things were about to hot up between the pair, but that wasn’t actually true.

It was all fake

There was never actually any sort of relationship between Clint and JJ, and the promotion video was just made to get fans talking, which certainly worked!

The pair did get very close whilst in The Bachelorette, but only as friends. They had a bromance, but a source told TMZ that “nothing gay ever happened”.

TMZ’s sources further added that Clint and JJ thought it was “funny” and even recorded soundbites for the producers to make it seem real.

They were good friends

The relationship promo may have all been a hoax, but Clint and JJ were really good friends in The Bachelorette house.

Fellow contestant Justin Reich told PEOPLE that they were like “two peas in a pod” and were always hanging out together by the pool, cooking together and sitting on the couch.

“They get a little pep in their step when they’re together,” he added.

In one Bachelorette scene, Clint did say: “I feel like I’ve connected with JJ probably more than Kaitlyn right now. We’re so similar it’s actually insane.”

“I never thought that I’d meet someone here. We’ve grown so close, almost too close,” he continued before adding:

“The possibility of coming onto The Bachelorette and falling in love with a man never crossed my mind, but I believe in the process and at this point, I’m a success story.”

This one scene convinced fans that there must have been some romance between them, but the storyline seems to have been produced for the show, and they were actually just friends.

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