Coming up roses! Bachelor Nation’s Rachel Lindsay and Vanessa Grimaldi have squashed their long-running feud.
“I was in a feud with Vanessa, and it wasn’t aired. But, then it kind of became — when I was on Nick [Viall]’s season — and then it kind of became known, because certain people from the season would talk about it. But, neither one of us ever went on social media and went at each other,” Lindsay, 34, said in a sneak peek from the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast’s Wednesday, November 27, episode.
The two ladies competed against one another for Viall, 39, during season 21 of The Bachelor in 2017, and behind-the-scenes they did not get along.
“Actually, she messaged me, like, after time had passed and I had done the Bachelorette, she messaged me,” the former Bachelorette star said during the second part of the podcast’s “Friendsgiving” special hosted by Lindsay, her husband, Bryan Abasolo, and Bachelor Nation’s Eric Bigger, Katie Morton, Tayshia Adams, Kendall Long and Joe Amabile.
“We got on the phone and we didn’t even hash out what had happened because we are so many years past that,” she continued. “We just picked up where we were and had a conversation about it and wished each other the best and we’re totally friendly and cool now. I mean, like, what a concept.”
In order to squash their issues, the reality star admitted that “time had to pass” and “we had to separate. It had to be the right time for us to come to each other and work that out.”
Lindsay first addressed her strained relationship with Grimaldi, 32, in September 2017 after their fellow contestant Danielle Lombard talked about it in her Reddit AMA. Lombard, 27, told a fan that Lindsay had distanced herself from Grimaldi during Bachelor filming because, “Vanessa called Rachel something that was extremely derogatory.”
The Texas native cleared that up during an interview later that month with ET in which she said, “Vanessa told me that I used ‘aggressive’ tones with her, and I was very upset by that. There are so many stereotypes placed on African-American women.”
She added, “She called me a ‘bully,’ and for her to use that phrase was offensive to me. She had no examples to match it. I also felt, as a special education teacher who works with children, she was using the word frivolously.”
While on the show, Lindsay said that she gave Grimaldi a chance to apologize, but instead, “She told me, ‘No, you’re a bully, and I told Nick that.’”
The response “was an assassination on my character,” Lindsay said. “After I’ve faced uphill battles for my entire life and worked to prove myself in my career.”
During their season, Lindsay finished third and Grimaldi got engaged to Viall, but they called it quits five months later, in August 2017.
For her part, Lindsay went on to be The Bachelorette the next season and married her winner, Abasolo, on August 24 in Mexico.
