Speaking out...

Rachel Lindsay and Bryan Abasolo famously found love and got engaged on Season 13 of “The Bachelorette.” The two got married in 2019, then after more than four years of marriage, Bryan shocked Bachelor Nation by filing for divorce. 

Rachel has spoken very little about her divorce publicly. But now, for the very first time, the former Bachelorette is speaking out on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast and revealing shocking information about what happened. 

While reflecting on her marriage with Bryan, Rachel shared she discovered some of his motives were different than what she originally thought. 

She said, “I thought I was with a guy who did not care [I was the Bachelorette]. It was kind of his brand, it was something that we bragged about. It was like, ‘Oh, he lets Rachel be Rachel and he loves it and he supports it. And she’s got this big personality and he’s way more chill.’ And I wanted to pick a guy who kind of let me be big and take up a lot of space and was okay with that and was secure in himself. That’s why I liked my ex was older, that he had a career, so I really was like, ‘I found that guy’… No. What I underestimated was that behind the scenes, he wanted that [fame] as well. He thought that what I was doing would trickle down to him. That he could latch onto that, and then he in turn would be the same way.”

Continuing, she shared, “And as our relationship progressed, I realized that that was not who he was. You know how they say you’re meeting somebody’s representative? I was meeting his representative… I learned the hard way there’s a difference between a person and a partner in a relationship.”

Rachel discussed noticing red flags in their relationship — like Bryan quitting his job one week after “The Bachelor” was over — but overlooking them since they weren’t prominent before their marriage. Once they married and moved to L.A., Rachel stated those signs got worse, but she didn’t want to feel like she had failed the relationship. 

“I felt a lot of societal pressure that I needed to be married… And I was ready to have kids and so it was kind of like, ‘Okay, Rachel, what are you willing to accept?’” she said. “I always fell back on ‘He’s a good guy.’ He is not a good guy. I just want to be honest. I do not think that now. And that could’ve changed with the dynamic of our relationship, the show, the fame, the desire for certain things. I think that there were a lot of underlying feelings.”

Rachel then revealed that she had learned about their divorce through the tabloids along with everyone else.  

“I read about my divorce in Page Six,” she dropped. “I read about the details. I had no idea what he had filed for or anything. What he was requesting. He texted me right before, like we had said two days before that we both [want a divorce]. So I was like, ‘Cool, we’re on the same page, this is going to be amicable.’

“And then… he texted me and said, ‘Hey, I just filed.’... He didn’t serve me with papers. He texted me about it, so I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is gonna hit the media,’ and then boom, it hit. And so I was learning about it like everybody else was. I didn’t know what he had filed it under. I didn’t know what he was requesting. I didn’t know any of that.” 

Rachel also shared that her family didn’t know about the divorce before the article came out, nor did she know he had filed for spousal support.

“I found out because I wasn’t served with papers. It was just a text message, and he was still living with me. So that morning, we had a conversation and then he left for work and then I got a text message like 30 minutes later,” she said. 

Hear the rest of Rachel’s conversation in the full episode of “Bachelor Happy Hour” below and stay tuned for part two dropping tomorrow!