Nearly one month after the “big fat dumpster” finale of The Bachelorette — as co-lead Gabby Windey called it — Rachel Recchia is giving updates on her relationships with Tino Franco, Aven Jones and … Greg Grippo?
“I’m not actively trying to date at all, but I do feel like I’m not in a position where I’m, like, so broken that I need months to heal. That’s the consensus I’ve seen online — ‘she needs to heal,’” the 26-year-old pilot said on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s “Off the Vine” podcast on Thursday, October 13. “I’m OK. I’ve been doing the work. And I’ve been broken up with [Tino] since before you guys knew. So I do feel like I am in the spot where I do want that, but I’m not, like, on the dating apps. … I don’t want to start doing that yet. Because it’s so sad to me that’s where I’m at, honestly. … Going to full seasons and then to end up right back where you started? That’s where it’s frustrating.”
While Rachel admitted that she would be the Bachelorette again if she was guaranteed to find her person, the season 11 lead quipped, “If I was single and they said they’d pay me a million dollars to do it. I don’t know if I could do it again.”
Bachelor Nation watched Rachel’s engagement to Tino, 28, crumble during the September finale after he admitted to cheating on her while the show was airing. During the live After the Final Rose, her runner-up, Aven, showed up to ask her to talk.
“It’s crazy how watching yourself back, like, forces you to grow and learn. And watching myself back, I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I made so many mistakes,’” Rachel told Kaitlyn. “And I so badly want to stand there be like, ‘I was perfect, I stand by my decisions.’ I watched myself be so dumb — over and over and over again. And I’m like, ‘You have to learn something from that.’ So it has been a learning experience, for sure. And there’s so many things I feel like I can take from it. If it’s not a relationship, at least just like lessons for the next one.”
When asked what she would tell her past self, Rachel shared a similar sentiment about mistakes.
“I would go back to, like, right when The Bachelor ended, because I feel like, at that point, I had, like, no direction. I had no idea what was happening. I would just be like, ‘It’s OK.’ And then also be like, ‘Don’t be a dumbass on your own season. Get your s—t together!’” she admitted. “I feel like I could have went back and told myself so much — like night one, I wish I could just whisper in my ear and just be like, ‘Don’t.’ Period.”
Scroll through for more from Rachel: