Ariel Didn’t Know About Zach and Gabi’s Hookup on ‘The Bachelor’ Until She Saw It on TV: ‘I’m Really Hurt’
Zach Shallcross was the 27th Bachelor, and although his season began uneventfully, it ended as one of the most dramatic. The final four women who took Zach to their hometowns were Charity Lawson, Ariel Frenkel, Gabi Elnicki, and Kaity Biggar. He sent Charity home after meeting her family, but it was a stroke of good luck for the Georgia native. She was named the next Bachelorette, and her season has already begun filming. That left Ariel, Gabi, and Kaity to join Zach for the Fantasy Suite dates, which ended up a giant mess.
‘The Bachelor’: What happened between Zach and Ariel on their Fantasy Suite date?
Zach made the stunning announcement first to The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer: He decided there would be no sex on the overnight dates, an unusual decision on the reality show. Zach believed being intimate with the three women would complicate their relationships. That was probably his first mistake.
All three dates occurred in Thailand, and the first was with Ariel. The couple attended a night market, where they sampled local delicacies like grasshoppers and crickets, and then watched fire dancers.
They later dressed up for dinner (which they didn’t eat), and Ariel told Zach she was falling in love with him. The Bachelor broke the news that sex was off the table, but they decided to spend the night in the Fantasy Suite anyway.
They woke up in the same bed the following day but confirmed they were not intimate. So far, so good.
However, problems arose when Zach walked back on his word during date number two. He had sex with Gabi and then made their private moment public. He told the cameras and then let Kaity in on the secret, whether she wanted to hear it or not.
The only person who remained clueless was Ariel, whom Zach sent home.
What did Ariel say to Zach during ‘After the Final Rose’?
Ariel discovered that Zach and Gabi had been intimate at the same time as the rest of the world — when the episode aired. Before that, she had assumed sex was off the table for all of the Bachelor’s dates, not just hers.
Viewers found it odd that Zach didn’t let Ariel in on the secret because he seemed determined to be truthful with Kaity. Ariel also found it disturbing.
In After the Final Rose, Palmer confirmed that Ariel was “totally in the dark.”
She admitted to the host, “I’m really hurt. It really hurts to find everything out on TV when everyone else does with a partner that you’ve shared so many intimate moments with.”
Then the New York native got to speak her peace when the Bachelor joined her onstage.
“I should not have been left in the dark standing up there in Thailand at the rose ceremony,” Ariel told Zach. “You had ample time to also tell me about everything before I left. So I just really want to know why the other women were given grace and honesty — and that’s something you really pride yourself on — and why I wasn’t given that same respect after the way we built our entire relationship on so many other moments … I felt like it denigrated our relationship.”
Her statement received plenty of applause from the live studio audience.
Zach said he regretted the way he handled things. “I do owe you an apology for not telling you at all and you finding out when the rest of the world did. And that’s on me, and there’s just no excuse for it,” he told her.
Zach proposed to Kaity on ‘The Bachelor’
The three-hour finale of The Bachelor is never easy because there are always hurt feelings. But this was one of the messiest of them all.
Ariel was hurt, and Gabi was heartbroken. However, there was one happy ending. Zach gave his final rose — and an engagement ring — to Kaity.
The two look very much in love and are planning their life together. They both happen to live in Austin, Texas, and Kaity told Good Morning America they’ll probably move in together this summer.
They aren’t rushing into a wedding but plan to marry eventually.
