Maria Georgas has revealed if she regrets turning down The Bachelorette opportunity after ABC had "offered" her the role for Season 21.
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Maria previously claimed that her The Bachelorette casting "was set in stone" and she was already "doing wardrobe fittings" before it "became very overwhelming" and she felt the need "to decline" the gig during a recent appearance on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.
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Maria dropped this bombshell about a month after ABC had announced Jenn Tran as the new The Bachelorette star during The Bachelor: After the Final Rose for Joey Graziadei's season on March 25.
Maria was therefore asked if she regrets her decision to drop out of The Bachelorette during the Tuesday, May 14 episode of the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast.
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"No, not even for a second," Maria, 29, told The Bachelorette's Season 11 star.
"I think I actually had a realization that I did the exact thing that I should've done, and I'm very happy."
Maria pointed out, "It wasn't my time, and I was really putting my mental health first. I respect my decision, so no, I don't regret it at all."
Maria's explanation for dropping out was that she was "not in the right headspace" to be The Bachelorette star this year and her heart simply wasn't in it. She said she didn't want to waste a bunch of men's time.
"Jenn was one of my closest girls in the house, and she was always verbalizing how badly she wanted this. And when everyone around me was so supportive of me being in this position and everyone wanted this for me, I kind of took a second and was like, 'Why am I not happy? Why am I not excited about this?'" Maria said on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.
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"It took me realizing that it's just not my time where I was like, 'Guys, respectfully, I need to decline. I need to take a step back.'"
Maria added that The Bachelorette producers were actually "so supportive" of her last-minute decision because she had been "open and honest" about where she was at "mentally" and how she felt.
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Maria told Alex Cooper that as much as she wanted her time off, she also wanted Jenn to "have her moment" because Jenn will make "the most perfect Bachelorette" and she "couldn't think of anyone better" to lead the show.
Both Bachelor Nation alums Wells Adams and Nick Viall, however, have recently expressed how they're skeptical Maria was the one who had opted out of starring on The Bachelorette.
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Wells had called Maria "a little unhinged" and wondered if The Bachelorette producers thought she'd be too difficult to control during a March episode of his "Your Favorite Things" podcast.
"I heard that her demands were ridiculous and they were like, 'No,'" Wells said.
"I guess one of her demands is that she wanted to have her phone the entire time, which is like, come on! Another [rumor] I heard -- and who knows if any of this is true -- but I heard that she wanted... them to hire her friend to be her [own personal handler or producer], which, no! They are not qualified to do that job!"
Maria, however, said on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast that when she heard Wells' comments, she immediately "wanted so badly to shut that sh-t down."
Maria added, "[Wells] knows how mentally draining and physically draining this could be, so to say something like that, shut the f-ck up! You don't know me!... [And] everyone knows you get your phone taken away and that's it."
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And Nick had said on "The Viall Files" podcast earlier this month, "I think that's definitely Maria's truth... I just think there's another version to this story."
Nick elaborated, "I don't know anything specific about what happened with Maria and the show and why she turned it down, but in my experience, the few instances where someone was meant to be the lead and in the last minute there was a switch, I only know that, from experience, the show decided that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze."
Nick noted that while producers have worked with "difficult people" in the past, they "really value" the ability to get along with a lead since it's "a very long process."
Nick acknowledged it's "entirely believable" Maria had backed out of starring on The Bachelorette on her own accord, but he apparently hasn't heard "that version" of a casting story before.
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Maria was a fan-favorite on Joey Graziadei's season of The Bachelor, which just wrapped in March on ABC.
Joey had eliminated Maria after hometown dates in fourth place, and he ultimately got engaged to Kelsey Anderson. Joey and Kelsey are still together and planning a move to New York City in July or August this year.
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