'Love Trap,' Fake Twins and the Scandal of the Father Who Drove 'Lisans' Crazy

An Inside Look at the Bizarre Three-Year Ordeal Behind One of Apple's Biggest Podcasts in 2026, as the People Who Lived It and Recount It Show How an Incredible Accusation Turned Into a Criminal Case, and a Hollywood Hot Property. 'I tried to guess his next move. I was wrong every time.'

An inside look at the bizarre three-year ordeal behind one of Apple's biggest podcasts in 2026, as the people who lived it and described it reveal how an incredible accusation turned into a criminal case — and a hot Hollywood property. "I've tried to guess his next move - I've been wrong every time."

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Love Trapped host Stephanie Young was wedding dress shopping in Arizona in September 2023 when she first read about the titular case against former The Bachelor star Clayton Echard. An article published in the U.S. Sun titled "Mama's Baby Drama?" released, described how an unnamed ex-girlfriend of Achard's claimed she was pregnant with his twins and demanded in court documents that he take a paternity test.

"I remember thinking — and I've since said it to Clayton's face — 'Oh, that sounds about right,'" Young tells The Hollywood Reporter . "I didn't watch his season. I had just seen the clips online and his reputation as the Bachelor preceded him."

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Echard, then 28 and a former NFL athlete, had finished his 26th season on ABC's hit series as an underdog. After telling her final three contestants that she loved them all and had slept with two of them — a big no-no in the franchise decades ago — she left the show, and fans didn't hold back their feelings on social media.

"If you look online and they ask, 'Who are the most hated bachelorettes?'" Echard, who starred in the 2022 reality dating series, admitted to THR earlier this summer. - I am always on the list. "I got thousands of death threats and people trampled on me. There was a point where I really blamed the show for everything. But I have to be accountable," she says. "The version of me that people saw on TV was the version that I had made up that I thought everyone wanted to be me."

No one would have blamed Young for his reaction at the time, not even Achard. But the headlines were only the beginning of a bizarre three-year legal saga that continues. It's a story as big as any episode of The Bachelor, and it's gotten a bigger audience with Megahit Young's podcast from iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts, which has more than 25 million views to date.

Love Trapped details the investigation that eventually revealed how the unnamed ex-girlfriend — later identified as Laura Owens — tried to trap Echard in a relationship by altering the ultrasound image and other medical records and filming the pregnancy. According to a preliminary ruling, he lied several times under oath during hearings in parentage cases. In one courtship, now infamous online, she is adjusting what appears to be a fake pregnancy belly and drinking from a large can of Monster Energy.

Echard does not deny having a relationship with Owens, even if it was a very short one. In 2022, after completing his bachelor's degree, he moved to Arizona to work as a real estate broker. That's when he met Owens, the daughter of longtime San Francisco radio host Ron Owens, and had what he describes as a one-night stand during which they had oral sex. "Laura first contacted me through LinkedIn," recalls Echard. "If I wasn't the Bachelor, I don't think I'd be on his radar."

Echard says he never had sex with Owens again after that pleasure. Although he tried to continue the relationship, she continued - until a few months later, when he filed a paternity claim. "I sat down and said, 'Who is this girl?'" he says. We pulled up his Instagram and the last 20 people he followed were either athletes or local people who were super successful. Everyone looked good. He targeted successful men in the area.

Almost two years after the paternity allegation went public, radio journalist Young was tapped by Glass Entertainment in 2025 to host what would become the Love Trapped limited-edition podcast.

"I love the intersection of true crime and pop culture, and I thought, 'Sign me up,'" says Young of hosting what began as a 10-episode weekly edition that quickly became Apple's No. 1 podcast after launching on February 26, 2026. I'm in." The series reached No. 1 in Top Series and No. 3 in True Crime, and in July, the series was named one of the best of 2026 so far on Apple Podcasts. It is now eligible for a 2027 Golden Globe nomination.

Young had a background in radio, storytelling and podcasting, but admits it was uncharted waters hosting a project of this magnitude that required such a significant amount of research.

His preparation, which began in June 2025, included pre-interviews with content creators such as Rush Hour host and comedian Dave Neal, whom Young calls one of the "torch-bearers in this story," along with The Bachelor franchise blogger "Reality Steve" Carbone and YouTuber Schnitzel Ninja, who all voiced 2 in episode 7. which includes a "reward" for tracking the ongoing Owens case. A new episode will air the week of October 19, and a final episode is scheduled for later.

Young also conducted more than 40 hours of conversations and interviews with Echard, who had previously signed with Trapped in Love. Glass approached Young. "He was ready to tell his story. I was just lucky to be able to do that," Young says. "The person I know today, Clayton, is not the person I saw on TV."

When Glass first came to Echard, the former reality star was trying to reclaim her narrative. When the father's case made headlines, Echard began receiving emails from production companies interested in telling his story, but they didn't pan out. "At first I was getting a lot of companies that I wasn't impressed with, they backed out because they were worried about Laura suing," he says. "Then Glass came along and said, 'Hey, we'd like to do a podcast and a documentary.' A storytelling podcast."

Eichard was attracted to the idea of ​​a long-form investigative podcast produced at a high level. Launched in 2019, Glass Podcasts is part of the Glass Entertainment Group, which has been producing award-winning television and unscripted films for over 20 years. Founder and CEO Nancy Glass has had a lot of success in recent years since branching out into the true crime genre, adapting her true crime podcasts into documentaries - Infidelity, Guilt, and The Curse of America's Next Top Model.

An investigative journalist obsessed with true crime (he was the last person to interview infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer before his death in the early '90s), Glass says he and his award-winning production team, which includes Andrea Gunning and Ben Fetterman, headline his podcasts, know a good story when they see one.

"Podcasts are theater of the mind. They're evocative and really get to your emotions. None of our crime stories involve murder—they always involve emotion," Glass tells THR.

And there was a reason he loved telling Achard's story. "There was no doubt in my mind that Clayton was telling the truth all the way through," he says. "He can't make things up. That's what got him in trouble on The Bachelor. He's a guy who always tells the truth, good or bad."

Echard wasn't apprehensive about opening up, but after her experience on The Bachelor she was wary of trusting another set of producers. As Yang was brought in, Echard held out his hand. "I said, 'I'll be honest with you,'" he recalls of their first conversation. You have your work cut out for you. There's a lot here." "You have to really want to do it, and also, I have trouble with producers because of my past experiences. I'd really like to believe that you're going to be the producer who treats me more the way I want to be treated."

The result was 40 hours of their audio recordings, "and he probably talked to me for another 30 hours." He talks about their collaboration.

"Clayton was very vulnerable and accessible," says Young. "Whenever I had a question, I could call him and get an answer. Whenever I wanted him to do another interview, he was available. Knowing this story, imagine the awkward conversations we would have had to have? "It was a tough conversation and he was incredibly vulnerable."

When Young began working on Trapped in Love, Owens had just been indicted on seven felony charges in Arizona related to her relationship with Echard. After a trial in June 2024, a family court in Maricopa, Arizona, ruled that Owens had never conceived the Echard twins, as she had falsely claimed. The judge in that case, Judge Julie Ann Matta, saw a pattern and referred Owens for further criminal investigation, which ultimately led to his criminal indictment in 2025 and his subsequent guilty plea on August 28, after several delays, avoiding a trial originally set for January 2026.

The judge in that case was like, “Hey, I think this is something bigger. You might want to look into this." After that, it was the Maricopa County District Attorney's Office that ultimately charged Laura with the crime.

Young had reached out to Owens through their respective teams before launching the podcast, and he says "the understanding was that he was thinking about it and wanted to do it." But when the host reached out in early 2026 before the podcast launched, Owens sent an email indicating he didn't want to participate. (THR has reached out to Owens' current attorney, Christian Loders.)

We corresponded a little bit more, Demiyang says during the podcast, but Owens never speaks on the record. "I'll be doing direct quotes in episode 12," he adds of what was supposed to be the final episode, titled "All the Best." Episodes have continued since then, with the final bonus episode, "Guilty," covering the bankruptcy hearing on August 28. “[Laura] was not going to participate based on the responses I got from her,” says Young, who still hopes for a chance to connect. "I would still love to interview him."

Winning the paternity case in 2024 "was a good day," recalls Echard. But it wasn't over "It's like a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, you're winning. On the other hand, you're saying, 'Why am I in this in the first place?' Echard's role in Owens' case will continue as he remains a victim in his criminal case and is scheduled to share a victim impact statement at his next sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 23 in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, AZ.

"For me, it's about time everyone stops talking about it," Echard says. At the time, I was hoping to get into more mental health by talking to young people because that's what I needed and was on my way to doing as a kid. And then, of course, when he came out with this, it was a very heavy accusation, and so I was speechless.

Trapped Youth and Love continues to update listeners on the case, with the latest extra episode covering Owens, 36, pleading guilty. According to his plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to four felony counts, including two counts of conspiracy to defraud, one count of obtaining the identity of another and one count of perjury.

"When the first article came out, a lot of people, like me, a lot of people wanted to believe Laura. They wanted to believe that this woman was telling the truth — and people questioned Clayton because of her reputation," Young says of how the franchise's fans and voice helped crack the case. "But the narrative changed very quickly."

When it started, in September 2023, Owens shared a since-deleted post on The Bachelor subreddit identifying herself as an anonymous woman who had complained about Echard. He also shared a Dropbox link to the evidence, which is when a dedicated crowd of armchair detectives, a community called Justice for Clayton, first began dissecting Owens' claim and supporting Echard. It's that forum and their GoFundMe page that led to Echard getting legal representation, which includes her lead attorney, Greg Woodnick. What started as a subreddit has grown into communities across Instagram, X, and Facebook.

"The armchair detectives and internet detectives got involved because things happened to them that Stellara said happened to her, and they knew what she was saying wasn't true or didn't make sense: Pregnancy doesn't work like that. And they didn't feel he was being truthful about the things Laura claimed had happened to him. "The red flags were flying and that's why a lot of people invested."

In July 2023, Echard won that big legal victory when he won a paternity suit. But it wasn't until Owens accepted the deal that Echard began to close.

"This is the first time we've seen Laura take responsibility," Echard said in a reaction video shared on her Instagram after Laura was found guilty. (THR spoke to Echard for this story prior to Aug. 28.) “Laura never had until [Aug. 28], and it's not lost on me how big it was. "I believe he should go to prison to separate himself from his environment so that he can hopefully heal and give him another chance to come out into the real world and prove that he can be a better person."