Gabi Says Zach Is Changing Story About Sex to ‘Protect’ Kaity Relationship

As Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar continue their post-Bachelor press tour, Gabi Elnicki is starting to speak out about her side of the story — and the fantasy suites.

“It’s gonna become a he-said, she-said thing here and I don’t want to do that. And ultimately, at the end of the day, like, he has a relationship he’s trying to protect,” the 25-year-old runner-up began on the “Click Bait” podcast on Thursday, March 30, before denying Zach’s recollection that Gabi was the one who wanted to keep having sex “between” them. “I’ve seen some of his interviews and if he wants to look at things one way of, like, ‘She asked can we keep things a secret?’ I felt like he asked me that. And I agreed — I was like, ‘Yes, I obviously want to keep this between us.’”

She continued: “Ultimately, at the end of the day, what happened happened, and I thought we were in a place where it was coming from a place of love. And I looked at this as way more than a TV show. And I felt like we had connected on that throughout the season of what’s going to happen after we leave this bubble. … I just felt like we had an agreement, ‘This is going to be between us because this is our relationship.’”

The day after Zach, 26, and Gabi slept together — despite him setting a “no sex” rule for himself — he informed her that he wasn’t comfortable keeping things a secret. What Gabi didn’t realize, however, was that he was going to tell Kaity, 28, what happened.

“When he came to speak to me the next morning, I had no idea who was coming in my hotel room. I was completely blindsided,” Gabi recalled. “He had doubled down on it being a secret that morning before the camera crews came in. I said it on After the Final Rose. I remember I was brushing my teeth, he came up behind me, he kissed me on the back of the head, and he said, ‘This is just between us.’ And I said, ‘Yes, this is just between us.’ It was probably the second [or] third time we had said, ‘This is just between us, it’s our relationship.’ And so when he came into my hotel room, what he said to me was, ‘I don’t want to start a relationship up with secrets.’ And I thought maybe at the time, ‘Maybe, he’s giving me space to be able to speak to my support team about this. He wants me to not feel like I have to keep a secret.’ And it left some room for interpretation because [he had said], ‘Sex of any kind is off the table.’ People can interpret that however they want to. What I was not aware of is the conversation that was being had with Jesse [Palmer] and his interviews where he was using my name speaking — what I think is in detail — about what had happened that caught me very off guard watching it back.”

She added that it wasn’t about Kaity knowing what happened: “I’m OK with her knowing and the people that should have known being made aware of it. But I think that there could have been some discretion used to when speaking about it, which is where I think that that hurts me.”

Zach, for his part, told Us Weekly that he was having “immense guilt” about sleeping with Gabi after setting the intention not to have sex on the show to not overcomplicate things.

“In that moment, I told her, I was like, ‘OK, yes, this can be a secret.’ And the guilt ate at me,” Zach said on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast during a joint interview with his fiancée on Tuesday, March 28. “When things did not go the way I thought they were gonna go, I felt immense guilt, but I also didn’t want to hurt Gabi or freak her out. I [wanted to] just let her know like, ‘Hey, I feel really bad about this because of like, from what I personally did — me going against what I thought I was gonna do.’ 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. Obviously, it caused a lot of pain though, and I don’t take away from that.”

While Gabi maintains that Zach knew earlier than he admits that he was going to choose Kaity, the sales exec denied to Us that he wanted to confess about the fantasy suite because he was prioritizing his relationship with Kaity.

“I wasn’t thinking like that [or] much in advance, I’d say, because every moment counts,” Zach said. “And I was very adamant about that — every conversation, every time you have together, you have to live in the moment. And with that, I tried to do my best and compartmentalize every relationship separately because I think that’s the best way. You know, to be able to just look at each relationship and see what was the best for me and then also focus on you and all the other relationships.”

Despite it all, Gabi jokingly told Joe Amabile that she would have “beef” with Kaity if she didn’t score an invite to her wedding to Zach.

“I’m happy for him and Kaity. I truly from the bottom of my heart, like, I want nothing but the best for them. I told Zach [and] I told his family, I said, ‘You’re not getting rid of me because I’m friends with Kaity. So even if it’s not me, I’m going to be around,’” she recalled.

Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!

Scroll through for more from Gabi: