The Golden Bachelor alum Peg Munson has revealed when and how Mel Owens first expressed his love to her.
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"He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, and you know, has he told me he loves me? Yes, he has. Have I told him that I love him? Yes, I have," Peg said during a recent appearance on the "She's All Bach" podcast.
"But that took time and it took respect and it took trust, especially for women. I'm not going to go in and tell somebody that I love them when I don't even know them! How can I love you when I don't even know you?! To me, that's just insanity."
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At the Final Rose Ceremony on The Golden Bachelor's second season, Mel gave Peg a promise ring and said he wanted her in his future, but he didn't say he was "in love" with her until they went public with their relationship on After the Final Rose in November.
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Peg revealed on the podcast that Mel expressed his love to her first after they returned home from Antigua.
"He did [say it first]," Peg confirmed.
"What he said on the end days of the show was a lot of, 'This is what I love about you.' And I said a lot of that to him as well. But the 'I love you' came, of course, after the show wrapped up."
Peg said Mel didn't express his love while filming The Golden Bachelor because he has more integrity than to just tell women what they want to hear.
"I really respect him for remaining steadfast in what he believes. I think a lot of people now... they're coming around and they're kind of being fans of Mel because they're finally realizing that the dude had integrity," Peg gushed of her man.
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"He's not, 'I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I have feelings for you. I have feelings for you.' He didn't do that because he told me that he didn't want to lead anybody on."
Peg also revealed that she was pretty confident Mel cared about her a lot towards the end of the process.
"He told me at hometowns, he said, 'At the end, I hope it's you.' He kind of gave me a little bit of an insight, and that made my heart go pitter patter because he was afraid that I was going to leave, and he wanted me to stay," Peg shared.
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Peg claimed that Mel was "afraid" she wasn't going to pick him in the end since it's a two-way street on The Bachelor shows.
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"He had some fear that I wasn't going to pick him... because we all had the right to leave," Peg noted.
On Mel's The Golden Bachelor season, both Carol Freeman-Branstine and Cindy Angelcyk Cullers quit and left the show.
"He wanted to make sure that he was giving me a little bit of a reassurance that, 'Hey, I really like you, I dig you, I've got a crush on you, and at the end, I hope it's you.' So that was the reassurance."
Peg explained how she was truly able to open her heart once she felt "safe" with Mel.
However, Peg apparently knew during Episode 4 of The Golden Bachelor that she was going to be The One for him.
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"It's really weird and I know this sounds kind of hokey, but as soon as I got out of the mud bath [on a group date], I knew. Guys, I knew! My spirit was screaming at me, and I have a really, really good intuition," Peg boasted.
"We all do, we just have to tune into it like a radio. We have to listen to that intuition, and women are so much more in tune with our intuition. It's a woman's intuition."
Peg continued, "So as soon as I got out of that mud bath, I knew. I wrote it in my journal and I dated it... at the mansion. I put in there, 'It's me. It's really me. I'm the last one standing.'"
Peg admitted that she had even told her friend, Nicolle Kate, that she was going to be Mel's winner.
"Right after the mud bath, we went back to the mansion and she asked me, 'How did it go? How do you feel?' And I said, 'It's going to be me.' And she looked at me, like, 'How? What?!'" Peg recalled.
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Peg laughed about how Nicolle seemed pissed at the time.
"She was like, 'Why you? Who are you?!' Because nobody saw that connection between us," Peg claimed.
"I didn't put it out there for everybody else to see at the house. A lot of women did, but I kept it close to my heart and close to my chest. I didn't show a lot because it's hard for me, too, to open up and trust. I've been hurt and divorced."
On The Golden Bachelor's Season 2 finale, Mel's other finalist, Cindy, quit during her Fantasy Suite date because Mel had admitted he couldn't see himself getting engaged to his winning bachelorette for two years.
On top of that, Mel confessed he was "torn" between his Final 2 bachelorettes and didn't feel love for either of them yet.
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Cindy, seemingly desperate for validation and vulnerability from Mel, explained how she had joined The Golden Bachelor as a leap of faith and was expecting an engagement at the Final Rose Ceremony.
"You know the saying, 'First comes love, then comes marriage'... That's how it works," Mel told Cindy in reply.
Cindy said she wanted a commitment from Mel -- which she didn't think was too much to ask for -- and so it didn't seem like he was her guy.
After Cindy left the show, Mel continued the journey with Peg, who went on to meet Mel's two sons.
Reports swirled after The Bachelor finale that Peg and Mel were already clashing and having problems, but Peg insisted their relationship is thriving and they plan to spend the holidays together.
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