The Bachelorette star Rachel Recchia says there were so many red flags about Tino Franco that she overlooked while they filmed the show's nineteenth season.
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According to Rachel, Tino cheated on her around the time of The Bachelorette's July 11 premiere, and she didn't find out about his infidelity until mid-August, when The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All filmed.
During a Thursday appearance on the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast, Rachel admitted, "It's so tough because it's like I don't want to speak badly, but there were so many things that I saw, and I'm like, 'Why did not one person come to me?'"
Rachel seemed upset none of her bachelors had voiced concerns about Tino to her while filming The Bachelorette's nineteenth season.
"Not one person thought to maybe bring something to me, and I get it. There's a stigma around being a snitch or [ratting] out people, but I think there is a time when it gets to that point," Rachel lamented.
"When people start pulling themselves out because of it, bring that to me. And no one did."
Rachel added, "I can't blame them. I totally get why they wouldn't want to; I dealt with something similar on [Clayton Echard]'s season. I get it. It's just difficult... I wasn't involved in any drama, but there's a point where there's no other option, really."
Rachel pointed out how Tino had some eyebrow raising confessionals on The Bachelorette.
"And then to see some of the things he would say in his interviews and kind of treating it like it was a game -- or even just watching back me saying how I felt to him and having his reaction be so, like, nothing behind the eyes," Rachel said.
Rachel admitted these red flags weren't noticeable to her while she was dating Tino on the show.
"It was just in the moment, you don't see it because you are in love! And then you watch it back and you're like, 'Oh my.' It's like, 'Wow.' Some of the things I saw was really hard to watch. It was horrible," Rachel explained.
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Rachel said at this point in her life, she doesn't even need closure from Tino and that relationship.
"With Tino, the second I found out what he did, I'm like, 'I didn't need closure.' I just wanted to know -- I needed to know -- what happened. I didn't know what my plan was moving forward," Rachel told Kaitlyn.
Rachel recalled that all she could think about was needing "answers."
"After our talk, I was like, 'I don't need anything else moving forward, because if someone could treat me like that... sitting down and telling me that I'm the reason he did that, I didn't need anything else from him," Rachel told Kaitlyn.
Tino suggested on The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose, which aired in late September on ABC, that he had insecurities due to things Rachel had said to him, although he claimed he wasn't trying to justify his actions.
On After the Final Rose, Tino attempted to explain his "mindset" at the time he had kissed another woman at a bar, and Rachel said he was about to reveal some uber-personal and private things they had agreed not to discuss in public, which didn't sit well with her.
"Our conversations did get a little tough... When we started letting our conversations get into, 'I can't love you anymore,' or when you said..." Tino began on AFR.
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During the on-camera "Happy Couple" visit that turned out to be the pair's breakup conversation, Tino also accused Rachel of saying they may not be able to bounce back from the rough patch they were in as a couple.
"[You asked me] jokingly, 'Would you be the next Bachelor?' That hurt," Tino recalled.
"Do you really want to bring that up?" Rachel asked.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
And then Tino claimed Rachel once threatened to return her engagement ring, which Rachel has repeatedly denied in the press.
While Tino had owned up to his cheating this past summer, Rachel apparently doesn't give him credit for that.
"I think people are like, 'Well he told you about [the cheating].' I'm like, 'No, he knew someone would come forward' and they would have. He knew it," Rachel said, suggesting Tino was in panic mode.
Rachel previously told Entertainment Tonight there were "so many things" wrong with her relationship after the show.
"There are so many things that I think went on that day on top of allegations of whatever problems we were having -- just details into the cheating and how deep and intense it was emotionally and things like that," Rachel shared last month.
"I could sit here and air out dirty laundry, but at the end of the day, people saw what they needed to see, which was the fact that we were in a bad place and instead of getting out of that bad place, we ended up where we were."
Rachel seemed willing to possibly forgive Tino for his cheating at one point, but he failed to provide her a good explanation for his actions and deliver a genuine, heartfelt apology.
Rachel clearly wanted Tino to express extreme regret, but instead, she believed he kept pointing the finger at her, allowing the audience to believe that her behavior caused his confusion and ultimate unfaithfulness.
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Rachel noted while Tino had put "a beautiful ring" on her finger in Mexico, it "definitely" wasn't "worth the price" she "had to pay for it."
"We never will know the full story," Rachel noted. "I won't even know the full story. It's, at this point, just over and I think we all just have to kind of accept the facts that we have."
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
