Seven years after Nick Viall handed out roses, he’s still as involved in Bachelor Nation as ever. The latest? Maria Georgas suggesting that the former lead played a part is her season 28 edit.
Maria, 29, appeared on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on Wednesday, May 1, and addressed the “rumors” about her past with Nick, 43. (She later told a story on the podcast about Nick from about “seven years ago,” which links them in 2017 — the same year Nick was The Bachelor lead.)
“Nothing has ever happened between Nick and I, but it’s always been a friendship,” she declared. “He helped me through breakups. He was a good friend to me at points, and it was great. But I remember, and I never really understood it until actually being on the show, he had said to me, ‘I can see you being the villain.’ He’s like, ‘You’re going to go on. You’re going to be the villain,’ And I was like, why me?”
Maria made it clear that she “never” went on the show with “the intention of becoming a villain,” but she let the chips fall and the drama with Sydney Gordon became a focal point of Joey Graziadei’s Bachelor season.
Former ‘Bachelor’ and ‘Bachelorette’ Leads: Where Are They Now?
“I didn’t go in there and try to piss people off,” she explained. “But I remember him saying, ‘People are going to come after you no matter what. I can just see it. You’re going to be the villain.’ It was just funny because after I finished filming, there was rumors about me being a villain.”
Maria theorized that Nick’s friendship with Ashley Iaconetti, who is close with Sydney, led to her edit on the show.
“I remember someone sent me a photo of Nick and Sydney together. They were all friends because Sydney’s friends with Ashley, and Nick’s close with Ashley and Ashley’s close with Sydney,” Maria said during Wednesday’s podcast episode. “Part of me was like, was this all planned? Because I knew I was innocent, hand to God. So, when this all started happening, and then imagine dealing with that in the house and then coming out and seeing that she’s friends with Nick, I was like, there’s something conspiring.”
She added: “I was like, there’s something weird about all this. Because it was too close to home.”
On season 28 of The Bachelor, Sydney accused Maria of downplaying insecurities fellow contestant Madina Alam had about her age. While Maria apologized, Sydney continued to accuse her of bullying and creating tension among the women.
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Maria also claimed that she and Sydney made amends in a scene filmed before their blowout fight — but it never aired.
“She hugged me before the group date and she was like, ‘Maria, I just want to say again, I’m sorry for taking something out of context.’ It wasn’t shown,” she claimed. “We hugged it out. We were good. Later on that night is when she was like, ‘I feel bullied by you.’ You hugged me earlier that day. … It was crazy. But again, because I know she is a good person, deep down, I think that again, in this environment, it just brought out the worst.”
Maria made it clear that Sydney is “an amazing woman” and there’s no bad blood between them now. She made a similar statement about Nick, noting everything that went down is “in the past.”
“I just want everyone to know that there’s no animosity between us. I think we have always been friends,” she said. “He’s always been great to me, and I respect his relationship. I respect where he is now. I’m happy to see him grow. But yeah, to say that we didn’t have a past, that would be a lie.”
