Rachel Recchia’s happy ending was shattered just a few months after she got engaged to Tino Franco on The Bachelorette. Tino’s romantic proposal, which went down in May, aired during The Bachelorette finale on Sept. 20. Rachel revealed during After the Final Rose that she and Tino had broken up because he cheated on her.
Rachel explained that things started getting difficult between her and Tino when The Bachelorette premiered in July. “Throughout it all, I feel like I always tried,” Rachel said. “All I wanted out of a partner was someone who was going to stand next to me and support me. Around that time, I wasn’t feeling that support. If I’m not feeling it, I probably wasn’t giving it, as well. We took some time and tried to figure it out and how to move forward, and for the most part, I thought we were at such a great place, but it didn’t turn out that way.”
After that tough time, a few weeks went by where Rachel thought things were getting better. Then, during a secret and private meet up, things got worse. “He brought forth to me some concerns about relationships from the past coming forward and alluding to certain things and I told him if it happened in the past…let’s talk about it and get past it. He didn’t really want to tell me. We spent the rest of the week together and when I got home I got a phone call from him, again, alluding to previous relationships and things coming to light. I slowly was pulling on that string and revealing more and more. I think everyone knows it didn’t work out. He cheated on me.”
Rachel was clearly still upset with how things went down and was emotional watching the proposal back. “We went through difficult times but every relationship has to build on that,” Rachel explained. “We can’t really just leave it when there’s a bit of a crack in the glass. And it’s not just physical, it’s emotional — it’s texting, so many things that come together just pile on. It’s just broken trust, at the end of the day.”
The footage then flips back to Rachel’s first confrontation with Tino since he told her that he was unfaithful. First, she chats with Gabby Windey about what went down. Rachel explains that, even though she and Tino were having issues, they NEVER called off the engagement throughout the summer. When Tino arrived, he flat-out admitted that he “kissed another girl” during that time. Tino said that the girl who he knew before he went on the show, but insisted that they never dated before filming.
During the conversation, Tino brought things back to when things first started getting tough with him and Rachel (in mid-July). He read back part of that fight from his journal, including Rachel saying that she didn’t want to wear her engagement ring anymore or go to therapy to work on the relationship. Rachel clapped back at Tino, accusing him of lying and not providing context to what actually happened in conversation.
Rachel insisted that she never said she was giving Tino his ring back, and the argument continued to escalate. “You’re trying to say that what you did was because we were in a bad place,” Rachel argued. “Fine, we were in a bad place, but we never broke up, so you went and cheated.” Rachel was also upset that Tino spent an entire previous weekend with her and didn’t fill her in about what happened. Tino didn’t want to continue the argument, and insisted that it was a “one time” thing, which Rachel didn’t believe.
Tino accused Rachel of trying to make him look bad with the conversation. He was in tears as he stormed away from Rachel, and confused as to whether there was any chance they could end up together. Rachel went off on Tino for trying to minimize what he did. Tino stormed off again without apologizing, leaving Rachel even more frustrated and upset. She didn’t believe that he was actually planning on telling her about the kiss if she hadn’t “forced it” out of him.
He insisted that he loved her and begged her to try to get through this with him. However, things had gone too far. “I am done. This is such a big deal for me. I wanted to do this one time. I’m done,” Rachel told Tino, giving him the ring back. And just like that…it was over.
Back in the live studio, Rachel and Tino came face-to-face once again. It was their first time seeing each other since that conversation, and the tension was obvious. Tino started off by apologizing, but Rachel felt like he was still trying to project some of the blame on her by bringing up things they talked about when everything got tough in their relationship. There continued to be a miscommunication about whether or not Rachel had told Tino she was giving him the ring back before he cheated. Needless to say, the conversation did not get anywhere, and the two did not end on good terms.