In hindsight, The Bachelor‘s Maria Georgas wishes that she’d handled all of the drama between her and her fellow contestants on the show a little differently.  

The fan-favorite reality star, 29, addressed the ongoing conflict playing out onscreen between her and several of her competitors in a lengthy TikTok on Monday, calling the last two episodes in particular “kind of hard to watch” due to the quarrels and the personal information that she shared with Joey. 

Maria first landed herself in the hot seat after she denounced fellow contestant Madina’s worries about being the oldest person in the house. Her comments raised a red flag for Sydney, who took her concerns to Joey and accused Maria of being a bully, which caused the conflict to spiral even further out of control. 

The drama between the pair was taken up another notch when they were sent on a two-on-one date together in Malta that ended with Sydney being sent home. Unfortunately for Maria, the dispute didn’t end there as Jess and Lea both stepped in to further criticize her actions until she ultimately burst into tears and threatened to leave the show. 

In the video, Maria maintained that she wanted to “give grace to all the women involved” amid the arguments unfolding onscreen. “Being in an environment like this, it heightens everything — your emotions — everything is just overwhelming. And so it does get the best of us at times and it did get the best of me,” she said. “I think you guys got to see that on Tuesday’s episode. It was kind of my breaking point.”

“So I just wanna say I’m not innocent in this. I’d like to say that I am a woman who speaks her mind and will defend herself at all costs — that’s just how I was raised,” she continued. “But, yeah, if I could go back, honestly, I would do things differently, especially when whatever you’re going to say or do is just not gonna make the other person happy. So, next time, [I’m] just gonna zip it.”

In a note posted on the video, however, Maria added, “But when it comes to defending my character I will stand up for myself every damn time.”

She explained that “the last thing I thought was I’m gonna be in drama” when she first learned she’d be on the show. “I didn’t go into that house looking for trouble. I really didn’t,” she said. “I wanted to make friends, make memories, and then make a love connection. That’s literally it.”

“I think that what people fail to realize is that we’re all watching it at the same time. So a lot of the things that I’m hearing and I’m seeing that people are saying and doing — I’m hearing it for the first time and I’m seeing it for the first time,” Maria added. “So it is tricky. It was hard to navigate in the house and in that environment, let alone watching it back.”

Moving forward, she asked viewers to “please spread positivity” when it comes to her and her fellow contestants. “Nobody’s perfect, including myself, and I just think that s— happens sometimes and people deal with things differently,” she said. “I can’t understand or explain or defend everyone’s actions and doings in the house, but I’m responsible for myself and I think that I could’ve done things better. I’ll leave it at that.”

The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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