The Golden Bachelor Season 2 runner-up Cindy Cullers has opened up about her decision to leave the show during her overnight date with Mel Owens, clarifying that she didn’t know in advance who he would ultimately choose.
Cindy recently appeared on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast with co-hosts Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt to discuss her departure from The Golden Bachelor and her relationship with Mel, which ended when she quit the show during their overnight date.
“No. I mean, if it was [Peg Munson] all along, he wouldn’t have behaved with me the way he did,” Cindy told Amabile and Pitt.
“You know, twirls me on the dock and if you know you’re going to be with someone else, you refrain from those things. I mean, you have niceties and you’re gracious, but I think a man or a woman, if you’ve already made your mind up, you behave differently.”
“You’re not continuing to kiss and hold and hug and have those intimate moments if you’ve already made your decision.”
Cindy decided to send herself home during her overnight date with Mel after realizing they were wanting different outcomes for their relationship.
Cindy also revealed that she felt confident Mel would have been honest with her if she had asked him about his feelings for the other remaining contestant.
“I knew that if I asked him questions, like if I had gone to the Fantasy Suite and asked him what happened with Peg, he would be honest with me,” Cindy told the podcast hosts.
“He really was very upfront with me, and I felt I could trust him for sure.”
When Serena asked if there was anything Mel could have said or done to change her mind and help her feel comfortable enough to continue the journey, Cindy explained her expectations for where Mel should have been emotionally at that stage of the competition.
“I did not expect him to make a commitment to me or to pick me over Peg or even to say, ‘It’s going to be you in the end,'” Cindy said on “Bachelor Happy Hour.”
“But I feel like a man in this position, if you’re going to spend this amount of time and you’re down to two women, and if you haven’t started to think about how your life is going to integrate.”
“Peg and I are completely different women too, so… if I’m Mel and I’m thinking about my life, and I haven’t thought about my life with Cindy and how that might be, how that might work for him, how that might be different for him, what the challenges might be, what questions he might have for me about those challenges,” she continued.
“If he’s not on that level, then he’s not really in the same place that I am. And clearly, we’re so far away from an engagement if he’s not there.”
The Golden Bachelor’s Season 2 finale aired on ABC on November 12 and ended with Mel giving Peg a promise ring and saying he was finally “in love.”
