The Bachelor star Zach Shallcross has revealed the exact moment he realized he was going to pick Kaity Biggar over his runner-up bachelorette Gabi Elnicki -- and it's not what he told Gabi when he dumped her.
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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.
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Zach and Kaity confirmed live Monday night on The Bachelor: After the Final Rose that they're still together and happy. In fact, they'll be moving in together in Austin, TX, this summer.
On After the Final Rose, host Jesse Palmer asked Zach when he knew it was Kaity whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
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"When I knew, without a doubt in my mind, [it's when] I saw her on the last-chance date," Zach revealed, referring to his final one-on-one date with Kaity in Thailand.
"I saw her and I thought to myself, 'It's you. It's always been you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman.' Obviously with the show, I had to wait it out a little bit and couldn't say anything, but I just knew she was my wife."
Zach reiterated having that epiphany with Kaity during his Tuesday morning 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."
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He added, "I was like, 'What am I doing? Of course it's you! And it always has [been].' It was pretty special."
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.
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Zach, however, had told Gabi a different story about when he had made his final decision, as shown on The Bachelor's Season 27 finale.
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When Zach dumped Gabi at the Final Rose Ceremony, she cried, "I knew it was coming. I've known it was coming. What I don't know is why you wouldn't tell me when you knew."
Gabi was clearly upset Zach had chosen to wait until the Final Rose Ceremony to essentially make a grand spectacle of their breakup for The Bachelor when he could've broken up with her in a more relaxed, low-key setting.
"Gabi, I only could make this decision fully last night in bed," Zach insisted.
But Gabi argued, "You've known. You've known. You've known. You've known."
"No, I didn't," Zach assured her.
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Gabi, however, said she was going to be okay and that she wanted Zach to be happy.
"Kaity is a really special person and she's really lucky. So good luck. Goodbye," Gabi said.
"I'm sorry," Zach noted.
Gabi told the Bachelor that while her ouster was "heartbreaking," she didn't want him to feel guilty. She also said she didn't need or want an apology from him.
However, Gabi broke down in her final words, "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."
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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."
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