The Bachelor's Victoria Fuller Faces Ex Chase Rice on Date with Peter Weber: 'So Uncomfortable'
WARNING: This post contains spoilers from Monday’s episode of The Bachelor.
It’s week four on The Bachelor, and all hell has officially broken loose.
Monday’s episode picked up the morning after the rose ceremony where Peter Weber decided to send Alayah home over concerns that she was being “fake.” The rest of the women were eager to put the drama behind them as they headed off — drumroll, please — to good old Cleveland, Ohio, for the first trip of the season.
For his first date in Cleveland, Peter decided to take Victoria F. flying. They flew to Cedar Point and spent a few hours enjoying the rides at the amusement park until Peter teased that he had “one more surprise” for the girl who “loves country music” — a private concert. But little did she know, the performer would be Chase Rice, a.k.a. her ex-boyfriend. And of course, poor Peter had no idea the two had dated.
“We turn the corner, and I see Chase, my ex-boyfriend. Nothing could be worse. I’m freaking out right now,” she said. “I want to die. Chase and I dated before I came on the show. It’s just awkward. This situation is so uncomfortable.”
Still, she decided not to tell Peter out of fear that it would “ruin the moment.” So the two danced and kissed throughout the entire painful performance, with Victoria F. looking visibly rattled in her new boyfriend’s arms as her old boyfriend serenaded them.
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After the concert, Chase even exchanged brief pleasantries with Peter — who was still blissfully unaware of what was going on — while Victoria F. confided in a producer.
“I’m so overwhelmed. I was literally shaking the entire time,” she said. “He was singing to me and he was making these faces at me because he told me he didn’t want me to come on the show.”
She eventually managed to pull Chase aside, who confirmed that he, too, had been blindsided and hadn’t been told that the contestant on the date would be his very own ex. He suggested she do “what’s best” for her, and she decided that meant telling Peter as soon as possible.
“I can’t not say something to him,” she said. “But I’m so scared because I don’t want to push him away. I just hope that it doesn’t ruin everything.”
Finally, the two sat down for dinner and she mustered up the courage to drop the bomb. Peter, naturally, was stunned. “This is so freaking weird,” he said, almost to himself. “When do you dance and make out to someone else’s ex singing to you?”
Hurt by his reaction, Victoria F. started crying and walked off. After a moment, Peter went to find her and reassured her that none of this was her fault.
“What did I ask from all of you guys the first night? Honesty and trust. If I have that, I can’t ask for anything else,” he told her. “I respect the hell out of you for having the guts to tell me this today and I realize that that’s a weird, awkward conversation. I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything.”
“This is mind-blowingly weird, but just know that I do really want you here,” he said, giving her the rose. “Even after that most awkward, uncomfortable story. So have confidence. I want you to have confidence in us.”
The following morning, 13 contestants headed out on this week’s group date, where they were split into two teams for a football game. Per the rules, the winners would get to go on the evening portion of the date with Peter, and the losers would be sent back to the hotel. They ended up tying at the last minute, which meant all 13 of them would be fighting for time with him that night.
But before even half of them had gotten to talk to him, in strolled Alayah to “freaking set the record straight about what was said about me.” She pulled Peter aside and insisted he had been “manipulated” by the other women into sending her home, in particular by Victoria P., a fellow pageant girl who had claimed she only knew Alayah in passing but nonetheless didn’t trust her. Well, according to Alayah, that wasn’t true, and she and Victoria P. were in fact friends — and even took a trip to Vegas together.
RELATED: All About The Bachelor‘s Alayah Benavidez, Who Returns to the Show After Being Eliminated
Peter, baffled at this point, took this information to Victoria P., who avoided giving him any straight answers about the nature of her friendship with Alayah but did confirm the Vegas trip.
“Why did you tell me that you weren’t friends with her then?” he demanded. “This is insane right now. You told me something that I had no reason not to trust, then she comes here and she tells me all this other stuff.”
Meanwhile, another contestant, Kylie, fanned the flames. “I know the things that she said in the closet when cameras and mics were off, and I know the way she acted towards Alayah in the rose ceremony and it was completely [off],” she alleged about Victoria P. “It was, ‘She’s a terrible person,’ and then holding her hand during the rose ceremony.”
Finally, Peter sat down with Alayah and Victoria P. at the same time in an attempt to clear everything up. Once again, Alayah stated that she and Victoria P. were definitely friends, hence why she felt betrayed, and once again, Victoria P. seemed unable to give anyone a straight answer about her previous assertions. Suspicious? Yes, and Peter thought so, too.
“I’m just freaked out that Victoria is not exactly who I think she is,” he admitted. “That terrifies me. I would never in a million years have thought that going into tonight I would doubt Victoria. But I’m not deaf. I’m hearing what Alayah is saying in front of me to Victoria, and she is making points that make me question Victoria.”
Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he had “made a mistake” by sending Alayah home and asked her to come back on the show. She agreed, and they rejoined the rest of the women hand-in-hand, where Peter made the decision to offer her the group date rose.
RELATED: Chris Harrison Says Peter Weber’s Bachelor Finale Will Be Surprising in a ‘Gut-Wrenching Way’
Now, since Alayah had been on the outside with access to the internet for a few days, she had found out that Victoria F.’s date with Peter — and the whole drama with the Chase Rice concert — had leaked on social media. She decided to share that information with some of the women while Peter was on a one-on-one date with Kelsey, and when it got back to Victoria F., she was livid. She confronted Alayah in her hotel room, accusing her of being “manipulative” and “a pot-stirrer.”
“That’s something that’s very personal to me, and the fact that you think it’s okay to go around to other girls and not come to me first is absurd,” she said. “You may think that you’re safe because you came back and you got a group date rose, but I have some very choice words to say to Peter and he’s going to f—ing know who you are as a person. So good luck, honey.”
So that was where things stood heading into the fourth rose ceremony, with tensions at an all-time high between Alayah and the rest of the women. The ladies were equally upset with Peter, and they made their feelings known in front of everyone as soon as he walked into the cocktail party that night.
“I’m sorry, Peter, but I have never felt so under-recognized by somebody,” Deandra said. “For us who went on the group date, who busted our a– out there on the football field and literally have the physical bruises to show for it, and then for you to come to the cocktail party to ignore the half of us that didn’t get time and then walk in hand-in-hand with Alayah, it was like the biggest slap in the face. I couldn’t even look at you.”
He apologized, but his night was far from over. His conversation with Victoria P. was equally disastrous, and then Victoria F. informed him that Alayah had been blabbing about Chase. As the night fell apart around him, Peter was at loss for words.
“I feel like I’m messing up right now so bad. This is just backfiring like no other,” he said. “I’m worried that all these girls are just going to walk out and give up on this because I feel like they’re so disappointed in me, and I get it. I don’t blame them. I legitimately do not know what I’m going to do.”
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The Bachelor airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
