The Bachelor alum Nick Viall has reacted to Maria Georgas' theory that he and Ashley Iaconetti had influence over Joey Graziadei's The Bachelor season and plotted to make Maria look like the villain.
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"I found out about this conspiracy Maria came up with... I did not expect to face that kind of questioning on the week of my wedding," Nick complained during the May 7 episode of his "The Viall Files" podcast.
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On The Bachelor's 28th season, Maria and Sydney Gordon memorably had a feud in which Sydney had called Maria a catty and manipulative "bully," and Maria felt unfairly judged and attacked.
Joey had made the decision to eliminate Sydney during a two-on-one date with Maria, and then several other women in the house targeted Maria in Sydney's defense. Maria was therefore always at the center of drama.
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When The Bachelor began airing in early 2024, Maria claimed someone sent her a photo of Nick, Ashley and Sydney together.
"Part of me was like, 'Was this all planned?' Because I knew I was innocent," Maria told Alex Cooper on a recent episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.
Since Maria therefore assumed Sydney is "friends with Nick," she questioned if Nick had influence on her edit, adding, "I was like, 'There is something conspiring here!' I'm not kidding."
However, Nick clarified on his podcast, "I met Sydney on my book tour [in September 2022], and then I forgot Sydney existed! I didn't even know that Sydney was on the show and that that was the girl I met."
Citing more alleged evidence of her theory, Maria said Nick had told her years before her The Bachelor stint that she was "going to be the villain" if she ever got on the show.
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"That is true," Nick confirmed.
"Long ago, I did tell Maria -- because Maria used to always ask me to get her on the show -- and I did tell her that I could see her being the villain. And somehow, that turned into Maria thinking that in my zero free time and not knowing that she was on the show that somehow I made it my mission to [make her look bad]."
Nick's wife Natalie Joy added, "It's just giving delusional, honestly, at the end of the day."
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But Nick clarified that Maria turned out to be the fan-favorite on Joey's The Bachelor season instead of the "villain."
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In fact, most viewers actually viewed Sydney as the villain, and Sydney was subjected to hate and backlash while the show was airing because of how she had treated Maria.
Nick also set the record straight on other claims Maria had made during her "Call her Daddy" podcast appearance.
Maria said she's known Nick since 2017 and they had "a good thing going" and a flirty banter years ago when they were both single. She clarified, however, that "nothing ever happened" romantically between them.
"She said what was true, that we were friends and that friendship was mostly me giving her relationship advice... She said we knew each other and didn't hook up, and all of that was accurate," Nick confirmed on his podcast.
Nick also called Maria out for saying she could've gone farther than fourth place on The Bachelor had she not come up with an "excuse" -- which was Jenn's makeout session with Joey during a group date -- to try to quit the show right before hometowns, which had a negative impact on the pair's relationship going forward because Joey was questioning her commitment to him and the process.
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"Maria, if you're wondering why I thought way back when if you could be the villain, you saying, 'I could have gone farther if I wanted to,' is the type of energy that would put a target on your back in that type of environment," Nick explained, referring to how Maria had said she "never really understood" why Nick predicted she'd be a villain if she ever appeared on The Bachelor.
"That's all it takes. It's not that complicated."
When taking all of this into account, Nick admitted that he was "really hard" on Sydney.
Nick lamented of Maria, "Instead of thinking it was possible that [she] could rub anyone the wrong way, [she thinks] it was more believable... that their own friend, whom they hadn't spoken with in several years -- for no other reason than to prove himself right -- decided to come up with this elaborate conspiracy theory as to why she might have rubbed some women in the house the wrong way."
Ashley also slammed Maria's theory about alleging joining forces with Nick to take down Maria on The Bachelor during the May 1 episode of "The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous" podcast.
Ashley laughed at the idea she had plotted for a Sydney vs. Maria rivalry, telling Ben Higgins, "It's not an accurate theory whatsoever. Nick does not know Sydney. In fact, Nick thought Sydney was absolutely ridiculous on the show and called me to talk about how she is in real life."
Ashley also said the first time she heard about Maria was when Sydney had returned home from filming The Bachelor in late 2023 and told her about a girl named Maria on the show.
While Ashley playfully called herself a "mastermind," she insisted The Bachelor producers are the true puppet masters pulling the strings.
"They get paid to actually be masterminds," Ben added. "They get paid big bucks for it."
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Regardless of whether Sydney or Maria was the true villain on The Bachelor this year, Maria revealed on "Call Her Daddy" that she and Sydney are on good terms now.
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"We hugged it out. We're good," Maria told Alex, before adding, "Because I know she is a good person, deep down, I think that again, in this environment, it just brought out the worst."
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