The Golden Bachelor star Mel Owens has confessed he actually felt "big relief" when Cindy Angelcyk Cullers quit his season.
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Mel had admitted to Cindy in Antigua that he didn't see himself getting engaged for another two years, and Cindy was displeased about The Golden Bachelor star's refusal to take a leap of faith and express his feelings for her.
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Cindy therefore decided to leave the show's second season before the overnight portion of her Fantasy Suite date, leaving Peg Munson as the last woman standing.
"When [Cindy] quit and said, 'Will you walk me off?' I said, 'Yeah, I'll walk you off,'" Mel recalled on the "She's All Bach" podcast.
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"And we get to the end of the dock. To the left was where the stairs were to leave, and she turned to me and goes, 'Let's keep in touch.' I thought that was odd."
Mel repeated two more times, "That was odd. That was odd."
Mel then laughed and said he "didn't say anything" to Cindy in reply except for maybe, "You quit!"
"Let me tell you this: she quit right? And the relief that was in my body!" Mel confessed.
"I go, 'Thank God, because now I don't have to go through the whole rigamarole of giving this speech of, you know, I like you, I like you, I like you -- BUT.'"
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Mel continued, "It was a big relief because it wasn't going to be her and then she quit, so I was like, 'Okay, great! That part of the show, that difficult portion that I'd have to deal with, now that's gone.'"
While Cindy's departure was "unexpected," Mel acknowledged that the show must go on.
"There's still a show to make. I have a responsibility to, you know, put a show on and live [up to] my end of the bargain. I had to," Mel revealed.
"So I wasn't like, 'Oh hey, by the way, it's Peg and we're all going to leave now.'"
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The Golden Bachelor's second season ended with Mel giving Peg his final rose as well as a promise ring.
Cindy recently joked on "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast" that she thought the promise ring was "a joke."
"I mean, I think [fellow Season 2 bachelorette Carol Freeman-Branstine] said it best -- that she got a promise ring when she was 14," Cindy quipped in December.
She added during her chat with Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti, "If I'm looking for a relationship, you are not going to give this woman a promise ring!... I don't think Mel has any intention of ever getting married."
In response to Cindy's jabs at him in the media, Mel said, "When you have self-doubt that creeps in, that's what happens. And then, you know, there's regret."
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Mel elaborated, "And then she goes on a podcast explaining, 'What I did was powerful.' Ehh, no, it was not powerful, you quit."
Mel suggested that Cindy was playing the game on The Golden Bachelor and they simply weren't on the same page.
"She said she wanted to get married and, 'I want to move to you,' it's like, 'Come on, let's be real,'" Mel vented.
After the show wrapped filming, Mel and Peg finally expressed their love for each other.
But Cindy apparently surprised Peg when she had sent Mel a message late last year, wishing him a happy birthday.
Peg complained about how it "very inappropriate" for Cindy to have done that, but Mel noted, "I didn't pay attention to it. It was no big deal."
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Mel and Peg said they've been very happy in their relationship and they've even discussed marriage and what their ideal wedding would look like.
Peg also recently claimed that The Golden Bachelor viewers didn't get to see the real Mel.
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