Rachel & Gabby’s Guys’ Scandals Make for a Rocky Finale on 'The Bachelorette'
One gal is happily engaged, while the other dumped her fiance on camera!
The Bachelorette’s bizarre 19th season went out with a bang on Tuesday night.
A studio audience watched the grand finale episode in which Rachel Recchia got engaged to her pick, Tino Franco, while Gabby Windey accepted a proposal from Erich Schwer.
However, the live portion of the show revealed other women scandals involving their men!
The hit ABC reality show for the first time had featured two ladies looking for husbands.
As Tuesday’s episode began, however, host Jesse Palmer told the crowd about the breaking news.
Tino had allegedly cheated on Rachel and a former girlfriend of Erich’s had released text messages that supposedly proved he’d dumped her to go on The Bachelorette.
Cameras showed Gabby after last week’s meltdown in Mexico when she worried Erich wouldn’t propose.
The real estate analyst said he really wanted their relationship to work.
They realized how much they loved each other and ended their talk with kisses.
Rachel visited Tino’s room and told him after she’d eliminated Aven, “You are the only one here. It’s you.”
Tino was ecstatic.
“I trust him,” she said in confessional.
Did Rachel and Tino get engaged on The Bachelorette?
Tino and Rachel met outside the resort in Mexico as she held her final rose.
“I don’t feel like I could be happier…because I’m so madly in love with you. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you,” she told him.
Tino said, “This is never going away. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Rachel, I love you so much….You’re the woman of my dreams.”
The hunk got down on one knee and opened a box that contained a blazing diamond ring!
“Will you marry me?” Tino asked Rachel.
“Yes! A million times!” she replied.
He put the ring on her finger and they embraced.
Rachel asked him if he would accept her final rose—and of course it was just a formality, he did!
“I could not imagine spending my life with anyone else,” Rachel told Tino. She wiped tears away and said, “This is the happiest moment in my life.”
They even rode off together on a white horse!
Why did Rachel and Tino break up?
Sadly, Jesse noted on the live part of the show that things had changed between Rachel and Tino after their idyllic engagement.
“I truly felt like I had found my person,” Rachel said to the audience. “It was great for awhile.”
But Rachel added, “Everyone knows it didn’t really work out. He cheated on me.”
“It’s just heartbreaking,” she said. She viewed the breakup like “a crack in the glass. It’s physical, it’s emotional. It’s just broken trust at the end of the day.”
Jesse said fans would see the scene filmed after the show ended when Rachel confronted Tino.
Beforehand, Rachel spoke to Gabby and said Tino hadn’t been sorry enough for cheating. Instead, Tino had wanted her not to tell anyone about it!
Gabby advised her to be stern with Tino: “F--- him and kick him in the balls. You don’t deserve this!”
After Gabby left, cameras showed Tino sighing to Rachel, “I messed up and I kissed another girl…this was the tiniest thing ever. I tried to get past it…what do you want to know now?”
Rachel said everything—and he explained he’d met a girl before doing The Bachelorette.
They ran into each other at a bar after he’d appeared on the show.
Tino then switched to reading his journal in front of Rachel and told her, “The stuff you said hurt so much.”
According to what Tino had written down, Rachel had told him, “I can’t put effort into this.”
Tino claimed Rachel had asked him if he wanted to be the next Bachelor! And he told her no.
Reading from his journal, Tino contended that she’d said, “I’m giving back the ring. I don’t want to go to therapy.”
She accused him of lying and said she went to therapy on her own.
“How you dare bring this to me without context….never once did we ever say we are broken up,” Rachel said about his cheating.
Tino again accused her of having said she was giving his engagement ring back.
“That’s false!” Rachel said. “You went and you cheated.”
Tino said, “I am so sorry about this. I was haunted by it.”
Rachel said he had sat on the information for days.
“It was a one-time mistake. I realized immediately I needed to be with you,” Tino said. “Is there a way this works out, Rachel?”
“You owe me a lot of answers,” Rachel said—and he stormed off.
“She just wanted to f___ing beat me up!” he told producers. “This is nothing more than making me look bad.”
Tino sobbed, “Just tell her to break up with me. Let me out!”
After he walked back into the house, Rachel told him he wasn’t taking accountability and had instead turned it around on her.
Tino said he’d assumed they were breaking up, but then thought they were back on the right track.
Rachel said he had told the other woman he was engaged.
Tino stormed away again, and Rachel whined to the cameras, “He can’t even apologize!”
When he returned, she said, “Don’t you think I’m owed an answer of why you did what you did?”
Tino said he loved her but had panicked: “We can make it through this…I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
But Rachel replied, “I’m done. This is such a big deal for me.”
“Don’t give up,” Tino begged.
Rachel wouldn’t budge, telling him, “I’m done!”
Tino left the house in torment, while she told the cameras, “I tried.”
What did Rachel and Tino tell the audience?
“He wasn’t even sorry,” Rachel told Jesse. “Apparently, it was my fault that he cheated.”
However, Rachel admitted, “He did send me a letter…telling me that he was sorry.”
Tino joined Rachel in front of the crowd and said he didn’t want what happened at all. “My actions are on me and I own them completely. I’m sorry.”
The handsome contractor said he wasn’t trying to put the breakup on her but explain his situation.
“You were so sweet to me and made me so happy…you didn’t deserve what I did,” Tino said.
But he insisted again that Rachel hadn’t wanted to wear his ring anymore when they hit a rough patch.
“You just projected it onto me again,” frustrated Rachel said. “I never said our engagement was over.”
Tino conceded he was in the wrong.
“You broke my heart! You’re still running in circles!” Rachel shouted, denying she had wanted to give the ring back.
Rachel had the last word, telling Tino, “What you did is absolutely inexcusable.”
Who showed up after Rachel and Tino broke up?
Aven, Rachel’s second place guy, then joined them onstage and the crowd cheered.
“You don’t deserve any of this. I was wondering if you wanted to catch up,” Aven said to the blonde beauty.
“I would love nothing more,” Rachel told Aven, hugging him.
Tino looked shocked as Aven took Rachel backstage for some flirting.
Did Gabby get engaged on The Bachelorette?
Erich and Gabby got all dressed up and met in the Mexican resort’s courtyard.
“When I first saw you, my heart skipped a beat,” Gabby recalled to Erich. “You do mean the world to me. I love you.”
Erich replied, “I want to be that person for you. You bring out the best in me. “I love you Gabby Windey….I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He got down on one knee and asked, “Will you marry me?”
“Yes. Oh, my God. It’s so pretty,” Gabby gushed about the diamond ring he offered her.
She gave him her final rose and he accepted.
“We finally made it!” he said, and they rode away together on a motorcycle.
What happened with Gabby & Erich after the final rose?
Jesse said that Erich and Gabby had also had bumps in their road.
Erich joined Gabby onstage and they talked about how happy they are together.
But Jesse said via social media, an ex-girlfriend of Erich’s said “you only broke up with her to be on The Bachelorette.”
The dapper real estate analyst revealed he’d dated a woman a month before the show started. “I realized it was not a long-term,” Erich said. “I handled it poorly. I led her on. ..I want to own it a hundred percent.”
The host showed text messages from the previous galpal, and Erich sighed, “I was taking the cowardly way out, using the show as an excuse (to break up). I didn’t see a future but we were having fun.”
Erich stressed when he met Gabby on the show’s first night, he fell head over heels.
He claimed their relationship is “100 percent real and I want this to be forever.”
Gabby said Erich had told her about the text messages long before they were released.
“You were kind of an asshole to her,” she commented, but said he held himself accountable.
Jesse said, “You’re forgiving this guy?”
“I guess,” Gabby joked, laughing.
In fact, she told Jesse they were settling into a cozy life together even as she competes on another reality show, Dancing with the Stars.
