The Bachelor bachelorette Michelle Money revealed she felt a wave of guilt for leaving her daughter in order to search for love on television during Monday night's The Bachelor: The Women Tell All reunion special.
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"I think I put a lot of pressure on myself because I left my daughter, and I think I feel guilty for that. I still feel like I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have left her," Money said during an appearance which showed viewers a new teary-eyed, vulnerable side of the previously aggressive bachelorette.
However, while Money said she felt bad for leaving her daughter behind, the 30-year-old hairstylist from Salt Lake City, UT told The Bachelor host Chris Harrison she still had no regrets about her decision to go on the show.
"I had such an amazing time. It was all wonderful and then all of this comes out. So the negative effects of it are starting to outweigh the positive. Look at me, I can't even breathe," Money explained.
While The Bachelor's broadcasts showed her repeatedly making catty and controversial comments about her fellow bachelorettes, Money, a part-time actress, said she went on the show "for the right reasons" and not for attention or publicity.
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"I just have to say that I didn't go on the show to be a clown and to be like the person everyone talks about. That's what's frustrating. I want to find love and I want that for my daughter and for me, and I don't know. I want that," Money told Harrison.
In addition, Money denied the suggestions of some of the season's other bachelorettes -- particularly Stacey Queripel, a 26-year-old bartender from Boston, MA -- that she wasn't a good mom and had chose not to put her daughter first.
"I have to say this. I am a good mother, and you have no right -- no right at all -- to even kind of question my mothering in any way," Money told Queripel.
"I didn't. I actually just -- what I did was -- interpret how I would raise my daughter and how I would do things differently," Queripel replied. "I actually didn't say anything about how you raised your daughter. I just said how I felt my mother raised me, and I'm just saying that..."
"So you are implying by saying that that I'm a bad mom!" Money insisted.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski