Devin Strader has explained his The Bachelorette drama with Thomas Nguyen, Aaron Erb and Sam McKinney.
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"Every time I moved or looked away, there was an issue."
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But Devin took a little responsibility from his end, admitting that he can be petty at times.
"That's who I am. I'm going to get under your skin and I'm going to see how people act when they're under pressure, because I think that shows a lot about who you are. In not-ideal environments, how are you going to operate?" Devin boasted.
Devin's feuding with other bachelors on the show began with Aaron, who had accused Devin of stepping on the other guys' toes and "making an ass" out of himself by stealing time with Jenn to eat gelato during a group date.
When Aaron approached Devin about his beef, Devin recalled, "He doesn't make it a situation [in which] he talks about himself, saying, 'Hey, I was uncomfortable about the situation because of this.'"
Instead, Devin said, "[Aaron] immediately leads into a conversation of, 'Hey, you're not a man. You're not grown enough to be with a woman. I'm judging your character and I'm judging your depth. I don't think she wants to be with a boy.'"
Devin vented about how he and Aaron "didn't even know" each other yet and so any desire Devin had to hear him out and hash things out "went out the window."
"I was like, 'If you're going to make bold assumptions like that, I can't help you here, buddy. I am not the guy you are going to rile up, that's for sure,'" Devin said.
Aaron, thinking Devin lacked emotional intelligence, gifted him a book about self-growth, and Devin shared how he felt that was a "very condescending" gesture. (Devin said had he known Bennett Jordan had gifted Aaron's brother Noah Erb a similar book on The Bachelorette 16, he would've treated it like more of a joke.)
"As much fun as I'll poke at you, I'll never make assumptions about who you are or what your values are or what you believe in, [as well as] the things that you deserve in life and the things that you don't deserve in life," Devin explained.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW"He was trying to bestow this wisdom on me that he clearly didn't have himself about maturity. If it's bothering you that much, let's have a real conversation and talk about it and get over it. He wanted to get back at me in that setting."
Devin also thought it was ironic Aaron was bashing his character when Aaron kept calling him "Dylan," seemingly on purpose.
Aaron ended up quitting The Bachelorette to pursue fight-pilot training, and on his way out, he dropped a bombshell on Jenn that some of her bachelors weren't ready for an engagement and some of her guys weren't on the show for the right reasons.
Devin confirmed that Aaron had, in fact, been talking about him.
"He told me that! He told me I wasn't there for the right reasons during our conversation at the bar. He says, 'I don't think you're here for the right reasons,'" Devin noted.
"So in my mind, I was like, 'Okay, I know he's talking about me. At least have the decency to say my name'... He didn't have the decency to say it to me. He did, but he did it kind of backhandedly, and then he says it to this poor girl who's on her journey and trying to do her thing."
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Devin said it pissed him off when Aaron told him that he wasn't ready for an engagement.
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"I think the biggest thing for me was, who are you to assume you are so much better than me when we don't know each other? [How could] you put yourself in my shoes when you don't know anything about me?"
Devin complained about how Aaron had also thrown "a wrench" into Jenn's journey "without any care about it" and it was "a frustrating experience" for him.
Devin explained how the guys thought he was two-faced, acting one way with Jenn and another way with them, but he insisted he "never changed" and "made an ass" out of himself no matter who was around.
"I know myself... and I know my flaws," Devin said.
"None of these little words [like two-faced] are going to trigger me, and I think that's what frustrated everyone so much about me, was that they were trying to assume and place this judgment and mask on me that wasn't there -- and it wasn't going to bother me."
Devin told Joe and Serena that he was "there for Jenn" and didn't know much about The Bachelorette when going on the show.
"I didn't care about any of the antics or the unwritten rules or the group collective thinking that I think was going on at that time," Devin explained.
Moving on to Thomas and Sam -- who had called Devin a "bully" and "ankle-biting dog" among other remarks -- Devin claimed those two men "isolated" themselves in the house and just did their own thing.
"They did not make it any easier for us in this already-uncomfortable environment... I'm at least trying to, what did he say? 'Keep the main thing, the main thing.' I'm trying at least, and they're not! I think that's the big discrepancy between Sam and I," Devin shared.
Devin also couldn't believe how Thomas had acted around him in Australia, after he and a handful of bachelors had their time on a safari group-date cut short.
At the subsequent cocktail party in Melbourne, Devin said he had pulled Jenn first for a conversation as a way to bow out early and allow the other guys a chance to talk to Jenn.
"Anything I did at that point was going to be perceived as wrong, like I was doing something against the grain of what the other guys were thinking," Devin recalled.
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Instead of interrupting Devin and Jenn's conversation to speak with Jenn, Thomas pulled Devin aside and loudly scolded him -- so Jenn, left alone in a nearby room, could hear -- about being rude and disrespectful to the other guys.
"It was absolutely ridiculous. It was ridiculous. I could sit here and say I feel for the guy, but I don't feel for the guy in that moment," Devin admitted.
"I get his frustration, and I'll say this: I think Thomas, I feel like he was pushing himself down this path where he didn't know where it was going to end up -- but I knew it was going to be disastrous for him if he kept going."
Devin went on to slam Thomas for completely ignoring Jenn in that moment.
"The way he handled it, I was like, 'Dude, this has got to be one of the all-time dumbest moves I've ever seen in my life.' It had to have been!" Devin quipped.
"It took me saying to Jenn, 'Do you mind if I get up and argue with this guy for a second? Do you mind?' He didn't even say 'hi' to her! Exactly what you saw is exactly how it happened."
Devin said the way Thomas yelled at him was "completely insane" and "a completely asinine move."
Devin added how Thomas had made "an egregious mistake" with Jenn and so he simply let the bachelor "completely make a fool of himself."
Devin considered cutting the argument short, but instead, he decided to "highlight" how "dumb" Thomas sounded in that setting.
"I was very, very surprised that he... didn't ask me to go outside or something like that. That was a shock factor for me," Devin told Joe and Serena, adding how there was no way Thomas could spin his behavior in a positive light.
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RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
