The Bachelor went back in time a bit on Monday night.
A week before Matt James and his trio of finalists looked toward the future and the former really started to decide with whom he wanted to spend it, James gathered with a bunch of his exes to revisit the past.
Altogether, 15 booted suitors reunited on ABC’s annual Women Tell All special.
And things got very heavy very quickly.
Chris Harrison — yes, still acting as host — began by asking Jessenia if she still considered MJ to be one of the season’s mean girls who targeted the five latecomers.
“I would say it was just kind of adding onto making them feel uncomfortable, more so,” Jessenia replied.
“It was the fact that she wouldn’t necessarily own up to it to Matt.”
If you recall, Matt eventually sent MJ home after a two-on-one confrontation with the hairstylist and Jessenia.
MJ’s roommate, Mari, defended her, while MJ explained: “I do have a strong personality and that should not be misconstrued as mean.”
Bullying remained a huge topic of conversation as the show moved on to Ryan admitting “it’s hard to hear yourself called a ho on national television.”
Victoria, the person who used this word, then accused Ryan of being a “super sensitive person,” asking if perhaps she’s just overly “emotional.”
Chris turned from there to Katie Thurston, who proudly confronted Victoria about her attitude during Season 25.
“It does suck to watch it and hear you call me ‘disgusting’ over and over again,” Katie said to Victoria.
Victoria admitted the name-calling was “unacceptable,” but clarified:
“We’re all getting backlash for however we handled anything and I think it’s important to remember we all did the best we can do. Life is a learning experience as is this journey and we’re just getting to watch it back.
“So again, I’m just so sorry.”
Katie accepted Victoria’s apology and said she felt “ready to move on from this experience,” emphasizing to critics that death threats and body-shaming are not acceptable.
The suitors then turned on Katie.
“The house was not toxic until you made it toxic by bringing the situation up to Matt and then causing the domino effect that led to every single drama in the house,” Chelsea claimed.
Serena C. went on to say that Katie spoke with Matt “to light a flame and start a fire,” while Pieper asked Thurston how doing so benefited her relationship with The Bachelor.
“I didn’t look at it as a way to help my relationship with him. I was just being who I believe I am. I am very outspoken.
“I’m going to speak my mind and for me it was just kind of like, my last straw,” Katie responded.
“We have to live in this house for up to two months and what I was experiencing personally, it sucked.
“And so for me, I feel like I owed it to Matt and to myself and to the environment to let him know my opinions.”
From here, Chris brought Brittany into the scalding hot seat to discuss that escort rumor, which he called “one of the craziest rumors that I have heard in the 20 years of doing this show.”
“I never felt so low like that in my entire life and I was completely shocked,” Brittany said of Anna telling other women she worked as an escort back in Chicago.
“That was just defeating.”
Brittany added “it’s just really f—–d that I have to constantly defend my name from now on,” which we totally get.
Anna, thankfully, admitted “everything in this situation I did was wrong [and] awful” and apologized profusely.
What about Katie’s romantic journey?
She may or may not be the next Bachelorette. But she’s hopeful either way.
‘Matt was the first person I was able to be 110 percent myself with and it didn’t work out, so that’s tough,” Katie explained.
“But I just have to remain hopeful that my person’s still out there.”
Up next? Serena P., who made the unusual decision to walk away from James… after he met her family.
“I really wanted it to work out with Matt and I. But talking to my mom, I mean all of those feelings just kind of boiled over onto the surface,” she said, adding that she hopes she didn’t hurt James.
“I wasn’t sitting there 100 percent that Matt is my person and he is the one I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, and they could tell something for me was off.
“And that seed of doubt really grew from hearing that.”
Finally, it was time for Matt to take the stage.
He wore a beard (!!!!) and addressed many of the women.
“That’s never how you want to see someone’s time come to an end that you’re having a great connection with,” he said of MJ, for example.
“I wish that we could’ve gotten more time to explore what that relationship could’ve looked like but at the end of the day I’m dealing with these things as they come at me.
“I just had to make that decision for myself.”
And Anna?
“I knew that that wasn’t your character and who you were and it was just a lapse in judgment.
“What a lot of us are understanding is that there comes a point in time where you have to be accountable for things and as tough as that is, better now I feel like than down the road.”
And Victoria, who said on air here that she didn’t appreciate how Matt rejected her and how it caused many “levels of pain?”
James apologized if he hurt Victoria’s feelings.
“When people ask me about you, I have nothing but good things to say about you,” he said.
“I know that, again, I’ve never been in your situation, not only from being on the other side of the rose but just your life experiences, so I apologize if you felt offended that night.”
To close, Harrison also asked James a question that’s been on Bachelor Nation’s mind since the premiere:
Why does he kiss with his eyes open?
“To be honest with you, I didn’t know that that was like a no-no,” The Bachelor confessed.
“I didn’t know you were supposed to have your eyes closed. This is news to me. But when I’m watching it back I’m like, that’s kind of weird. So, I’m doing self-reflection.
“Like, I should probably start kissing with my eyes closed.”