The Bachelor star Zach Shallcross insists he didn't lie to Gabi Elnicki about when exactly he had made his decision to dump her and pick Kaity Biggar instead.

ADVERTISEMENT

Zach rejected Gabi, leaving her devastated and "humiliated," and ultimately got engaged to his The Bachelor winner, Kaity, during the Final Rose Ceremony of Season 27 that filmed in Thailand.

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

Gabi was convinced Zach had strung her along, but Zach told her during their breakup at the Final Rose Ceremony, "I only could make this decision fully last night in bed."

Zach, however, told The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer on After the Final Rose how he had no doubt in his mind he was going to pick Kaity during their very last date in Thailand.

The Bachelor finale Monday night on ABC showed Zach having his "last-chance date" with Kaity and then Gabi.

But according to The Bachelor star, his last-chance dates aired out of order -- and he actually went horseback riding with Gabi before hiking in a jungle with Kaity. 

"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, 26 told Us Weekly on the March 28 episode of its "Here for the Right Reasons" podcast during a joint interview with Kaity, 28.

Zach therefore claimed when he told Gabi he was "so torn" between his Final 2 bachelorettes not long before the Final Rose Ceremony, he was telling the truth.

"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,'" Zach revealed.

However, 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 had only fully decided "last night in bed" was truthful given his date with Kaity would have ended well before then.

Zach had also reiterated he had an epiphany during his final date with Kaity during a March 28 appearance on Good Morning America.

"In the very beginning, there was always something very special [with Kaity] and she was just always on the top of my mind," Zach recalled.

"But the exact moment when I looked at her and I was like, 'That's my wife,' it was at the last-chance date, before the engagement."

He added, "I was like, 'What am I doing? Of course it's you! And it always has [been].' It was pretty special."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)  

Zach said after that last-chance date with Kaity, he just let everything go and stopped trying to rationalize his actions and decisions leading up to that point in his The Bachelor journey.

"I just let myself feel," Zach noted on GMA.

And Gabi also let herself feel. When Zach broke her heart at the Final Rose Ceremony, she had tears streaming down her face and appeared totally devastated, even though she had already predicted the outcome.

Gabi insisted Zach had "known" whom he was going to choose and she saw it coming. (She later voiced on After the Final Rose how she couldn't believe Zach had dragged her to the Final Rose Ceremony and made a grand spectacle of their breakup).

After Zach denied Gabi his final rose, she cried to the cameras, "I just want to go f-cking home. That was f-cking humiliating. I've been strung along this entire f-cking time -- and for what?"

"What really pisses me off is that I f-cking knew!... When your gut speaks, you should listen to it," she continued.

"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 lamented, "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."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)

Gabi was upset with Zach for many reasons after their split. On After the Final Rose, she confessed to feeling "violated" when Zach had spilled their sex secret to Kaity as well as home viewers.

Gabi claimed she and Zach had agreed to keep their sexual encounter in the Fantasy Suite a secret, just between the two of them, and so Zach blindsided her and broke her trust.

"In that moment, I told her, I was like, 'Okay, yes, this can be a secret,' and the guilt ate at me," Zach confirmed to Us.

"And thinking that there's an engagement right around the corner and I'm holding in a secret, like, I don't know, that is the scariest thing. That's not who I am as a man. That's not what I want to be -- to hold secrets and not give the full truth."

Zach acknowledged, however, that being honest and transparent "caused a lot of pain." Gabi felt betrayed, and Kaity admitted that she didn't want to hear about Zach's relationships with the other women.

"I don't take away from that," Zach noted. "There's several ways it could have gone different, and I hope Gabi knows that, like, the intentions were as pure as they could be, and I did not want to hurt her on that."

Zach's third-place finisher Ariel Frenkel was also "disappointed" in how Zach had handled the Fantasy Suites.

Ariel -- who had the first overnight date with Zach in Thailand -- felt disrespected because Zach never told her, personally, about his Fantasy Suite with Gabi. Zach only chose to tell Kaity, the woman he ended up with.

In addition, Ariel felt Zach had taken away her voice and agency in their relationship by deciding for them that there would be no sex in the Fantasy Suites.

"I totally agree with what Ariel was saying... Making this, you know, executive decision for everyone, that's not right of me. And that's where I failed myself [and] I failed the women. And that's when looking back, what I would've changed," Zach said.

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.

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

Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON GOOGLE NEWS