The Bachelor runner-up Gabi Elnicki has reacted to Zach Shallcross' recent claim he didn't lie to her about when he picked Kaity Biggar as his winner.
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"I wish he would've sent me home [earlier]. I didn't get to say that to him, but I do wish he would've just sent me home when I felt like he knew," Gabi said during a March 30 appearance on the "Click Bait with Bachelor Nation" podcast hosted by Joe Amabile.
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When Gabi approached Zach at the Final Rose Ceremony in Thailand, she said she had a gut feeling that Zach was going to dump her and choose Kaity.
And then when Zach confirmed her suspicion and broke her heart, he insisted, "I only could make this decision fully last night in bed."
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Gabi, however, didn't believe him and repeated how he had "known," and Zach proceeded to tell The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer on After the Final Rose how he had no doubt in his mind he was going to pick Kaity when he saw her for their "last-chance" date in Thailand during the last several days of filming.
"It's you," Zach turned to Kaity and told her. "It's always been you. I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman. And obviously because of the show, I had to wait it out a little and couldn't say anything, but yeah, I just knew she was my wife."
Gabi therefore explained on the "Click Bait" podcast how Zach clearly wasn't being honest with one of them.
"I don't want to accuse him of lying about how he was feeling, because I don't know how he was feeling -- I can't say that. But for him to say, 'I didn't know until last night,' and then for him to say to Kaity, 'I've known,' it was kind of conflicting views," Gabi reasoned.
"And to me, you know, I felt like he knew. Maybe he didn't want to admit it."
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By apparently telling two different stories of what happened, Gabi suggested that Zach was probably trying to protect Kaity's feelings given the couple is engaged now.
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"It was putting salt in the wound of me being like, 'Yeah, you should have sent me home and you knew. I felt like you knew.' And then for him to be like, 'No, I didn't know,'" Gabi recalled to Joe.
"And then I watch the next part [of the finale episode] and it's [Zach telling Kaity] like, 'I knew it was you, but I had to keep going because of the show.' It's like, I'm a person! I'm literally a person with feelings and a heart."
Gabi said Zach's dishonesty in that moment "honestly hurt [her] more, watching it back."
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Gabi, however, said Zach's speech to Kaity made sense because he wanted her to "feel chosen."
"So honestly, if I were in his shoes, I'd probably say something similar. Because you want that person to feel like, 'Yeah, it's always been you. I knew it was you. I choose you.' And that's his relationship," Gabi noted.
Following After the Final Rose, Zach claimed in an interview with Us Weekly that his last-chance dates aired out of order and that Gabi's date was actually first.
Zach thought that explained why he was truly "so torn" between his Final 2 bachelorettes at that point in the process.
"That's the beauty of reality TV and editing. I'm not going to lie about it. I didn't know when I left the last-chance [date] with Gabi. I truly didn't know," Zach claimed.
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"It was the moment I saw Kaity after [my date with Gabi]. I was like, 'This is my wife. There's not a doubt in my mind.'"
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But Zach's explanation that the two last-chance dates aired out of order still doesn't appear to address how his Final Rose ceremony conversation with Gabi in which he insisted he only made his decision "last night in bed" was truthful given his date with Kaity would have ended well before that time.
Regardless, the chain of events left Gabi feeling "humiliated" by her elimination. She had assumed that, if Zach truly cared for her, he wouldn't drag her through the Final Rose Ceremony and dump her in such a grand spectacle for television.
Gabi also felt "violated" and was upset with Zach for spilling their secret that they had sex in the Fantasy Suite. She claimed on "Click Bait" that Zach had also lied about how their initial conversation -- and agreement -- to keep their sexual encounter a secret went down.
Now that the show is over, Gabi said her family is "a little angry and disappointed" in Zach, whom they had asked to protect Gabi during hometown dates, but they've been very supportive of her after the breakup.
Gabi also said the women from The Bachelor 27 have become like family to her.
"I'm happy for him and Kaity," Gabi insisted of Zach and his new fiancee.
"Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I want nothing but the best for them. I told Zach and his family, I said, 'You're not getting rid of me because I'm friends with Kaity, and so if it's not me, I'm going to be around.'"
Zach is now happily engaged to Kaity. The couple plan to move in together in Austin, TX, this summer, and they've already talked about having a 2025 wedding.
"If I'm not invited to the wedding, Kaity and I have beef. No, I don't think she'd ever do that to me. That's different, I know," Gabi concluded.
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