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Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis Fights Anti-Gay Controversy, Addresses “Mistake” With Clare

Juan Pablo attends an event on Jan. 17, 2014 in Pasadena, California
Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis attempted to clear the air about his controversial anti-gay remarks and the "mistake" he wishes he could take back with show contestant Clare

Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis has found himself in a lot of hot water this season — and not the kind that fills the hot tubs on ABC's reality smash. Three weeks after making some controversial comments about featuring a gay Bachelor on the series, the single dad is still trying to clear the air. In an interview with Good Morning America on Monday, Feb. 10, the former soccer player once again blamed his remarks on the fact that English is his second language.

"It was a misuse of a word…Like I said, people don't understand," Galavis told GMA's George Stephanopoulos, referring to his use of the phrase "more pervert" to describe same-sex couples. (He also said having a gay Bachelor would not set a "good example for kids.")

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"It's been hard because, to me, when I speak English, it happened to me [through] two months of filming, sometimes the words that I used were not interpreted the way that they should be interpreted, or I used a wrong word," he explained. "So I will go on my phone, Google and find the right word, and do it that way."

(Galavis previously said on Facebook that what he meant to say "was that gay people are more affectionate and intense and for a segment of the TV audience, this would be too racy to accept. The show is very racy as it is…")

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The Venezuelan-born star also said he had talked to GLAAD about the situation, and that the two sides had "made sense" with one another. "We understood each other…I'm around gay people all my life," he said. "I have a cousin who is gay. His sister is a nun," he added without elaborating. "It's been around my house all my life. So, to me, it was a misunderstanding."

As fans of the show saw last week, Galavis also had a misunderstanding with contestant Clare Crawley, who snuck away to his hotel room in the middle of the night for an intimate swim in the ocean in Vietnam. "Things got cleared," he said, noting that he had apologized to Crawley for later making her cry and telling her he regretted their 4 a.m. romp.

Related: PHOTOS: Celebrities crying

"It was my mistake that night. At four in the morning I was watching baseball…and she knocked on the door, caught me off guard, and she was so excited about the whole day, you know, that, to me, you want to go in the ocean for your first time, I was like, 'Sure,'" Galavis said. "And then in the morning I was like, 'I should have said no because it wasn't fair for the other 10 girls that were in the room.'"

The 32-year-old Bachelor went on to explain that there's a lot more to the story than what viewers see in ABC's weekly two-hour episodes. As for what happens next between them? "You'll see tonight," he teased.

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