For the record, cheating is not a genetic condition. But Clay Gravesande didn't seem so sure, as he spent much of the sixth season of Love Is Blind constantly reminding his fiancée, Amber Desiree “AD” Smith, about the commitment issues he was feeling after having a front-row seat to his father’s struggles with monogamy. Even so, AD stuck by his side throughout the season, culminating in a walk down the aisle that seemed all but guaranteed to end with “I do.”
Here’s a refresher on what actually ended up happening between Clay and AD.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for the sixth season of Love Is Blind.
What happened between AD and Clay on ‘Love Is Blind’ season 6?
AD’s time in the pods got off to a rocky start. For some reason, she started off by building a relationship with Matthew—who you may recall as the walking red flag of a man who once walked out of the pods as the woman he’d just asked a question was still speaking. Things came to an abrupt end between them, however, once AD realized that Matthew had been saying almost the exact same things to both her and another woman on the show—coincidentally, also named Amber.
From there, she turned her attention instead to Clay...who, let’s be honest, wasn’t without his own fair share of red flags. AD later told Us Weekly that she spotted them immediately, but as she proclaimed on the show, “If I see a red flag, I’m like, ‘Oh, well, I’ll just paint my nails red to match.’”
Despite the show’s entire premise, Clay insisted that he needed to know what AD looked like before he could propose (she refused), and he also talked often about his tendency to lead with his “very huge” ego and lack of experience building stable relationships. But none of that stopped AD from saying yes when Clay eventually proposed. She said he felt like “home,” and he praised how she “saw past my bullshit and … believed in me.”
In addition to their strong emotional connection and flirty chemistry through the pod walls, AD and Clay soon discovered during the post-pods trip to the Dominican Republic that they had plenty of physical chemistry, too. (Though, once again, he expressed a bit of a controlling fixation on his partner’s physical appearance, as he bluntly noted that if AD ever started to get “out of shape,” even while pregnant, he would try to stop that from happening and get her to join a gym.)
That pattern continued throughout their several weeks of living together in Charlotte before the wedding. Despite their very apparent physical connection, and even after encouraging meetings with each of their mothers, Clay continued to display his misplaced priorities and to express doubt over whether he was ready for a lifelong commitment—even saying outright at one point that he “might not be mature enough for marriage.” Meanwhile AD continued to wave away those fears on the belief that their love for one another and emotional connection would be enough to overcome any obstacles they’d face.
Did AD and Clay get married?
In a bit of a twist ending, they didn’t. In the days leading up to their wedding, Clay finally seemed more confident about the prospect of a marriage, giving no indication at their final date night that he might say anything other than “I do.” He even proclaimed at his bachelor party, “I can see myself married to AD.”
That excitement and self-assurance lasted through the entire day of the wedding, as Clay got ready with his friends and seemed happy and eager to meet AD at the altar, saying, “She’s my best friend. I could ride with her ‘til the wheels fall off.” Even a pre-wedding conversation with his father didn’t seem to trip Clay up. Instead, he opened up a heart-to-heart and was able to express just how much he felt he’d grown by being vulnerable with AD about witnessing his father’s infidelities firsthand.
But it all came crashing down after AD said “I do,” as Clay replied that while he loved her and was still “rocking with” her, it wouldn’t be “responsible” of him to marry her without continuing to work on himself first and getting to a point where he can give her “100%.” AD left the altar in tears—after stopping for a hug from Clay’s mom. Clay later visited her dressing room on the venue grounds to apologize for the “game-time decision” and to suggest that they could keep dating while he does that work, she didn’t agree, sadly adding that she felt like a “sacrifice” in service of Clay’s own soul-searching journey.
“You don’t want to pick me, somebody else will,” she said through tears as she headed back home. “I’m done. My heart is, like, completely broken.”
As for what they’ve been up to since then, ahead of the reunion episode’s air date, both Clay and AD played coy about their current relationship: AD told Entertainment Tonight, “I would say you would have to wait and see,” while Clay added only, “TBD.”
What happened at the reunion?
As instructed, we waited and saw, and it turns out that AD and Clay are definitely not getting back together.
They reported that it took several weeks after the wedding before AD agreed to speak to Clay again. And though Clay maintained that AD is the love of his life, that he made “the biggest mistake” by saying no at the altar, and that, if given the chance, he would “1,000%” date her again, AD was (understandably) frustrated by those proclamations, saying, “You had your chance. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t have given you.”
She went on to accuse Clay of “playing” her by knowing from the start that he wasn’t planning on actually getting married, but he disagreed, saying that even up to the final minutes before the big moment, he was on board with becoming husband and wife. Alas, he said, he got too in his head and started to worry that he wouldn’t be able to be the husband she needed or deserved, and so he couldn’t say “I do.”
He credited AD with the fact that he came out of Love Is Blind as “a different man” and said that he’d now be ready to fully commit to someone, as he’s spent the last year “doing the work” and going to therapy.
But with that option completely off the table for her, AD dropped a bit of a bombshell later on in the reunion, sharing that she’d actually met up with Matthew for “two-ish” dates after the show. The first, she said, largely revolved around him apologizing to her and being “very, very upset” over what happened between them on the show, while the second was a bit more date-y, with him cooking dinner for her (rice and chicken, for the record). After that, however, things fizzled out, since, according to AD, “we live two completely different lifestyles.”
