‘Bachelorette’ Star Charity Lawson on Feeling “Blindsided” During Fantasy Suites Before Dismissing “Selfish” Suitor

Ryan Gajewski
·3 min read
6
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

[This story contains spoilers for Monday’s episode of ABC’s The Bachelorette.]

Charity Lawson dealt with extreme highs and lows during the highly anticipated fantasy-suites episode of The Bachelorette.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Viewers saw Lawson, who leads the 20th season of the ABC dating series, experience dates in Fiji with remaining contestants Xavier Bonner, Joey Graziadei and Dotun Olubeko. Her time with Graziadei and Olubeko clearly went swimmingly, as Lawson separately — and stunningly — confessed to both men that she is not just falling in love with them but is actually in love with them. Plus, she was surprised by Aaron Bryant, who returned following his dismissal after the hometown dates to plead his case.

However, her time with Bonner was not nearly as successful. Lawson abruptly sent Bonner packing during dinner after a tense conversation that followed him admitting to having been unfaithful in his most recent relationship.

“That was a very, very hard conversation and an extremely harder conversation to watch back because, in that moment, I had so much going through my head,” Lawson tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I personally felt blindsided to have that conversation come up at that point in the journey. We’re in Fiji, a week away from proposal, and to have a bombshell like that disclosed to me and trying to navigate and see how this is even possible to bounce back from, that was very hard.”

The Bachelorette's Charity Lawson and Xavier Bonner
Charity Lawson and Xavier Bonner on The Bachelorette

Lawson acknowledges that she doesn’t necessarily begrudge Bonner for being honest with her about his previous missteps. However, she feels he should have handled things much differently, especially regarding his inability to assure the Bachelorette that he had changed his ways.

“I thought it was very selfish that he waited up until that point to have that very heavy conversation,” she continues, noting that they had been given plenty of one-on-one opportunities earlier in the season. “It wasn’t necessarily him disclosing a thing, but it was the questions that followed up. And for me, I’m a person that when you drop a bombshell like that, I’m gonna try to the best of my ability to get to the root of it and make sense of it for my life. And so the follow-up questions did not help him in any sense because he kept digging himself a deeper hole.”

She adds, “I knew, in that moment, this is absolutely not something that I need in my life, and this is not what I came in here looking for — qualities of a man that’s gonna be my future husband.”

Lawson emphasizes that she has zero regrets about the way that her relationship with Bonner played out, given that such an exchange proved their connection wasn’t meant to be. “I was shown everything that I needed to see, and I’m grateful that I was shown it in that moment — because God forbid it happened afterwards,” she says. “I would not go back and change anything, and I personally don’t wish that we would have ended up together because I don’t think that would have been a very healthy or successful relationship.”

The Bachelorette airs Mondays on ABC.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter

Click here to read the full article.