'The Bachelor' runner-up Gabi Elnicki reveals the moment she knew Zach Shallcross wasn't picking her

The Bachelor runner-up Gabi Elnicki has revealed when she realized she wasn't The One for Zach Shallcross and he was going to pick Kaity Biggar as his winner.


Zach dumped Gabi at the Final Rose Ceremony in Thailand in favor of Kaity, whom he proposed marriage to during The Bachelor's Season 27 finale.

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When Gabi was walking up to Zach to learn the fate of their relationship, she expressed to the cameras how she had a feeling she knew what was about to happen. Gabi's intuition apparently told her that she was going to have her heart crushed.

"What I think started [that gut feeling] was after Fantasy Suites, my privacy was violated... I knew something was going to air about our physical intimacy. I did not know the level it would go into," Gabi said of her sexual encounter with Zach during the April 6 episode of the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast.


"That broke my trust because we had an agreement that it was between us."

Gabi said she didn't know what Zach was going to say or whom he was going to tell about their sexual encounter during filming.

"But in my mind, it was, 'Okay, he is choosing to go against our word and the decision we made together and breach my trust to save another relationship,'" Gabi recalled. "So anyone who loves me wouldn't do that to me. And so I knew that."

Gabi said she had refused to meet Zach's family until she and The Bachelor star could "iron out" their issues.

"I was like, 'I'm so uncomfortable right now. I feel like I've committed a crime. I feel like an accessory to a crime.' And this was not something that was a crime! This was literally, like, I thought we were falling in love and this could potentially be my partner," Gabi explained.


"So we did have that conversation, and meeting his family, I did feel so much love."

Gabi, however, admitted she was probably "craving love so badly" in Thailand and so maybe the kindness Zach's family had shown her skewed her perception of her relationship with The Bachelor star.

"You have all these people around you, but you're still kind of on edge. You don't have anyone you love, who knows you through and through, whom you can truly, truly trust to your core," Gabi explained, adding how she didn't really have anyone looking out for her best interest.

"I think I was craving my family so badly... and so I felt so much love for [Zach]'s family. And that's awesome that they do have a great family dynamic. But I think felt family love, and maybe I labeled that as me being really in love in that moment."

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Gabi came to realize she just "really wanted love," which was "such a weird wave of emotions."

Gabi then shared with Kaitlyn how "something still didn't feel right" after she met Zach's family.

"And then on the last-chance date, there was just something about -- I don't even know how to explain it. I could feel the aura change; I could feel that it was not me," Gabi said.

"And I can't put words to it, it was just a feeling I had that was so deep and sure, 'It's not me.' But I had a little bit of hope, like, 'Maybe it is me and I'm being paranoid.' I don't know. You just never know!"

Gabi, however, said she "was not expecting" Zach to make her attend the Final Rose Ceremony, only to get dumped in a grand spectacle of a way.


"There's so much that goes into that day, and he was probably, you know, just preparing his speech for Kaity. Maybe he was distracted, and I'm sure it weighed on him a lot. And I'm sure there were people going, 'There's no time to go tell Gabi,'" Gabi explained.

"But yeah, I knew going up there. So you're supposed to prepare a speech of why you guys would be perfect together and why you're so in love, and I didn't practice a speech. I knew it wasn't me."

Gabi said she had some notes jotted down of why she really cared about Zach and why she thought he was great, but that was it.

While Gabi was upset and disappointed Zach had decided against breaking up with her in a more low-key and private setting, she said on "Off the Vine" how she's now "glad" she had that moment at the Final Rose Ceremony to express herself and speak her mind.

"[I said], 'I want the best for you guys,' and I wanted him to know that genuinely... I think going up there, it does take courage to go up there when you know what's coming," Gabi said.


"But also, I think it's important, in a weird way, to face your fears. And he had to face me. He had to face me and break up with me and say goodbye to me as well. So I don't know, it was really hard to watch back, and it was really hard going up there."

Gabi told Kaitlyn with a laugh, "I was honestly pessimistic and, like, a B-word the whole day. I was just angry!"

Gabi insisted she was "true" to herself "the entire time" and she's happy that viewers got to know her personality.

"I wasn't going to fake it and pretend like I was going to go up there and pour my heart out and, you know, make a fool of myself when I knew what was happening," Gabi explained.

"Do you have parameters in this and do you have pressures? Of course you do. But it doesn't mean you have to change who you are and it doesn't mean you have to say certain things. That's absolutely not the case. [The show] is not scripted by any means."

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Gabi acknowledged that she knew what was going on and so she had decided to be "true to that" and true to herself.

"So I am glad that they showed all of that, because I felt like I was very vocal about knowing it, and I didn't want to look foolish in that moment," Gabi shared.

Gabi previously said on the "Click Bait with Bachelor Nation" podcast that there's a good reason why she chose not to self-eliminate from Zach's season when she was well aware that Zach was going to dump her at the Final Rose Ceremony.

"I thought about my friendship with Kaity, and I hesitated saying this, but I think it is important to know, like, why I did stay," Gabi said in late March.

"I thought about my relationship with Kaity, and if I were in her shoes. And it was clear, Kaity was the choice. Kaity had been the choice. But if I had left, she could've felt like she was the choice by default. And she was truly the choice."

Gabi even shouted at production not to drop Kaity off in a mud pit when it became time for the blonde beauty to meet Zach at the Final Rose Ceremony. Gabi's assumption Kaity would be arriving after her was another hint that Gabi had a strong feeling she was about to get dumped in second place.


Gabi therefore wanted Kaity to have her moment -- a beautiful engagement free of doubts, reservations and insecurities.

"I never wanted her to feel like, 'Well, Gabi left, and so he had to choose me,'" Gabi explained to Joe Amabile on his podcast.

"Because no, he was always choosing Kaity. The only reason I would've left is because I knew he was choosing Kaity, but I didn't want her to feel any kind of doubt when he proposed to her and she watched it all back."

At the Final Rose Ceremony, Zach told Gabi that he wasn't "fully" able to make his final decision until the night before when he was in bed, but Gabi argued, "You've known. You've known."

Zach later told The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer on After the Final Rose that he knew he was going to pick Kaity during their last-chance date in Thailand.

Even though Gabi said she saw her elimination coming, she admitted in her final words on The Bachelor finale that she felt "humiliated" by the breakup.


"I've been strung along this entire f-cking time and for what?" Gabi lamented to the cameras.

"What really pisses me off is that I f-cking knew!... When your gut speaks, you should listen to it. I stuck around thinking, 'Maybe it's just all the things you fear and all the things you hate about yourself. Maybe it's not your gut.' No, your gut is always right. I put myself out there again and I'm not good enough. If I were, I wouldn't be here."

Gabi vented about how she's "unlovable for whatever f-cking reason," and continued, "There's something wrong with me. Why am I so hard to love? Why am I always so misunderstood? I don't know when someone is going to choose me. I just want to go home."

While Gabi contemplates appearing on Bachelor in Paradise this summer, Zach and Kaity will be moving in together in Austin, TX.

Kaity and Zach have already discussed having a 2025 wedding as well as their five-year plan for the future.

"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," Gabi said on the "Click Bait" podcast.


RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski