Former The Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay has revealed that she found out her now ex-husband, Bryan Abasolo, had filed for divorce from her by reading a tabloid.
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Rachel and Bryan -- who got engaged on The Bachelorette's Season 13 finale, which aired on ABC in 2017 -- finalized their divorce in January 2025, one year after Bryan had filed the paperwork.
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"[During our four-year marriage], I wasn't talking about what I was resenting him for, just like I know he wasn't talking to me about what he was resenting me for, but it definitely was there because all of that came out with the way our divorce went down. It didn't have to be that way by any means," Rachel shared on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast.
Rachel told co-hosts Rachel Recchia and Charity Lawson, "I read about my divorce on Page Six. I read about the details. I had no idea what he had filed for or anything he was requesting."
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Rachel said two days prior, she and Bryan had texted each other about wanting a divorce.
"He was like, 'Yeah, me too.' So we said it, and I was like, 'Cool, we're on the same page! This is going to be amicable!' And then... he texts me and says, 'Hey, I just filed,'" Rachel claimed, alleging Bryan wanted to beat her to the filing.
"I didn't even have an attorney... [I thought], 'We both want this. This is the best thing you could hope for, if you're getting a divorce, that it's a mutual thing, if it comes to that," Rachel said.
Rachel said Bryan didn't serve her with papers or discuss anything with her outside of those texts.
"So I was like, 'Oh my god, this is going to hit the media,' and then boom! it hit. And so I was learning about it when everybody else was. I didn't know what he had filed it under. I didn't know what he was requesting. I didn't know any of that," Rachel recalled.
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"But my first response was... I had to tell my family! Nobody knew! I hadn't said anything yet."
Rachel said she had only told two friends about her pending divorce and wasn't emotional about it yet. Rachel, at the time, was just thinking about the things she'd have to do.
"All that to say, the way the divorce was handled lets me know there was a lot of resentment... about the way our relationship progressed," Rachel shared.
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Rachel said she even found out that Bryan was asking for spousal support by reading about it online.
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"Because I wasn't served with papers. It was just a text message and he was still living with me," Rachel reiterated, adding how Bryan had texted her something along the lines of, 'Hey, I just filed.'"
"I was like, 'Wait, what?!' And that was it. So yeah... My case filing is No. 1 for 2024."
Rachel admitted she was "a shell" of a human while she and Bryan were going through their divorce battle.
When looking back on her The Bachelorette journey, Rachel said she picked Bryan because she thought he "did not care" about fame and influencing.
Rachel also said that Bryan seemed ready for marriage and she "could get past being the breadwinner" in their relationship.
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"It was kind of his brand. It was something we bragged about, like, 'Oh, he lets Rachel be Rachel, and he loves it and he supports it! She's got this big personality and he's way more chill,'" Rachel recalled.
"And I wanted to pick a guy who kind of let me be big and take up a lot of space and was okay with that and was secure in himself. That's why I liked that my ex was older and he had a career. So I was like, 'I found that guy!'"
But Rachel said Bryan "quit his job" as a chiropractor one week after The Bachelorette was over.
Rachel added, "It was in front of me... [But] I was just like, 'Okay, he seems like a good person, I don't want to start over. I don't want to go back out there.'"
Rachel therefore admitted that she "settled" and "accepted some things" about Bryan.
"The red flags weren't as big... [as they were] once we married and move to L.A.," Rachel noted. "It got worse and it got bigger."
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Rachel said once she was married, she realized she had "underestimated" how much Bryan was hoping to gain from his The Bachelorette journey.
"Behind the scenes, he wanted that [fame] as well. He thought that what I was doing would trickle down to him, that he could latch onto that and then he, in turn, would be the same way," Rachel explained.
Rachel said that once The Bachelorette ended, she "didn't want to do anything" that was couple-related.
"It was very rare that you saw couple content... I didn't make content with my ex, and I think that was something he was expecting and that would, in turn, be beneficial to him," she claimed.
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"And it wasn't. And as our relationship progressed, I realized that's not who he was."
Rachel complained she had met Bryan's "representative" on The Bachelorette and he turned out to be someone completely different.
"[Maybe] The Bachelorette turned him into something and brought something out [in him], but I kept falling back on, 'He's a good person. He's a good person. Why do I need to go back out there [and date] if I found somebody who's good?'" Rachel said.
Rachel went on to note, "I always fell back on, He is a good guy.' He is not a good guy. I just want to be honest. I do not think that now."
She concluded, "I was lying to myself... and I was putting pressure on myself not to fail [in my marriage]."
Rachel and Bryan got married in August 2019 without a prenuptial agreement, and after a couple of years, they both said they began living separate lives.
After Bryan filed for divorce, Rachel was ordered in July 2024 to pay Bryan more than $13,000 per month in temporary spousal support.
Rachel admitted in December 2024 that she felt "shame" amid her divorce.
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