The Real Reason Rachel Dumped Tyler Without Meeting His Family and How He Feels Looking Back on the Episode
She left him on the Jersey Shore!
Rachel Recchia’s suitor Tyler Norris has spoken out to Parade.com after she dumped him on The Bachelorette.
She shocked show fans by choosing Tyler for a hometown visit as one of her final four guys—then rejected him BEFORE meeting his family!
Monday night’s episode showed Tyler expressing his intense love for Rachel as they shared a day around his Jersey shore hometown.
They played carnival games together at Morey’s Piers, an amusement park in Wildwood, New Jersey, as a prelude to presumably meeting Tyler’s family.
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As Tyler’s feelings got stronger, Rachel realized he wasn’t the one for her.
Tyler gushed to Rachel about their date, “It’s been better than I could ever imagine.”
Rachel, 26, told a producer she didn’t return his sentiments: “I feel like a horrible person. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
The small business owner declared his love, but sobbing Rachel told him she didn’t want to meet his family because, “I just feel like there is something missing.”
Heartbroken Tyler had to go home alone to tell his waiting family, “She told me she wasn’t there yet….it’s tough. I loved her and I still do.”
After Rachel sent him packing, Tyler, 26, told Parade.com, “I’m a very emotional guy. I’m not afraid to say how I feel.”
He admitted: “[Getting dumped] was hard at the time to understand but when you think back on it, you say to yourself, OK, if she had met my family and knew I wasn’t ‘it,’ you’re bringing more people into it and getting deeper into a relationship and it’s going to hurt even more.
“So I’m feeling like she didn’t string me along,” he noted. “I have so much respect for her. I think she did it at the right time and I’m happy with the way she went about it. If it wasn’t going to be me, I’m glad she did it when she did.”
Tyler said, “I got a lot of closure watching the season, understanding where everyone else was at. [Other men] had some more time with Rachel, had deeper talks and obviously they were closer. Seeing that made me understand why everything happened the way that it did.”
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The handsome reality TV competitor has no regrets about appearing on The Bachelorette.
“I think that ultimately, I put my whole self out there for somebody,” he said. “I wasn’t scared of being vulnerable. I just wanted her to see the side of me that you would get forever. We were looking for engagement here, looking to spend the rest of our lives with somebody so watching it back, seeing how it ended, it was tough but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I made friends for the rest of my life. I’d do it all over again.”
Tyler told Parade.com he’s planning on leaving NJ and moving to California.
He wants to pursue a real estate career— and he hasn’t given up on love: “I’m still trying to find my person.”
As for Rachel, who will now choose between her final three men Zach, Tino, and Aven, Tyler said, “I think that they’re all incredible guys. I got to know them on a very deep level. I know that whoever she ends up with will give her everything she ever wants in life.”