Jenn Tran didn’t leave anything unsaid while exchanging words with Sam McKinney on The Bachelorette: Men Tell All.
“It felt so good to finally get that off of my chest,” Jenn, 26, exclusively told Us Weekly after the Men Tell All taping. “You’re watching things back, you get a full picture, a fuller picture of everything and how things played out. So it was nice to kind of just be able to really lay it all out there and say what I really was thinking of everything.”
Jenn noted that she “wanted to be able to address” comments Sam had been making online. (Since the show began airing in July, Sam and his loved ones have slammed the show for editing him in a negative light.)
During the Tuesday, August 27, episode, Jenn held nothing back while addressing Sam, who she said had “a few red flags.”
“I’m going to say this in words that you’re going to understand. So, I’m going to keep the main thing the main thing here,” she said, referring to his infamous catchphrase. “I wasn’t upset that you didn’t know how to describe love. Clearly, we are on very different emotional and intellectual levels. That’s fine.”
Instead, Jenn said she was bothered by Sam’s “blatant disrespect to everybody.” In hindsight, Jenn noted that their relationship “revolved around” Sam and his feelings.
“You watched that back and instead of growing and learning from that, you decided to double down on that and have your friends and family go out online and defend your honor when you’re a grown man,” she said. “And instead of taking accountability for your actions, you decided to blame it on the producers, the edit, the TV show, whatever it was. At the end of the day, the man that I saw on TV was exactly the man I sat across from the entire journey.”
After receiving applause from the audience, Jenn concluded her message by saying that she wants Sam to “be better from this.”
“But if you don’t take a step back and look at what you saw and take accountability for your actions and grow and learn, then I feel very very sorry for whoever you end up with because this delusional world you’re living in right now and this denial is not going to work for anybody,” she said.
When it was Sam’s turn to respond, he explained that he felt like he had taken “a lot of accountability” when he was in the hot seat with Jesse Palmer earlier in the episode.
“I definitely lost myself in some of those moments right there. And I wish that I could go back and redo them, truthfully,” he admitted. “You saw walls that I had built up around my heart, you saw it before me. And that’s something that I’m forever grateful for and that’s something that I will be able to take towards my next partner. For that, I really just want to say thank you.”
Jenn replied, “I truly hope that you mean that and you’re not just saying that to say that, because I do want the best for you.”
While sitting with Jesse minutes before speaking with Jenn, Sam acknowledged that he had been “struggling” to rewatch the season. He also cleared up why he had called Jenn “dull” during their breakup, explaining that the pair was able to communicate via their eyes.
“Your eyes do not lie,” he said. “So her walking into that room, I could see in her eyes that there was no energy there. There wasn’t what I was used to seeing right there. So I didn’t call her dull. I truthfully said that her eyes were dull and that was that moment.”
Jeremy Simon, who exited the show after hometowns, joked that he’s not sure where Sam’s eyes really were. (During a previous episode of The Bachelorette, Sam had candidly said he thought the Bachelorette was going to be former contestants Daisy Kent or Maria Georgas.)
“Whenever we all came out here we had no idea who The Bachelorette was going to be. But if anybody’s going to sit up here and say you didn’t think it was going to be Daisy or Maria, you guys are liars,” Sam said.
The Bachelorette season 21 finale airs on ABC at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3.
With reporting by Mariel Turner
