Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia were both suitors on Clayton Echard’s just-completed season of The Bachelor.
They both slept with the 28-year old, too.
Now, however? In a very surprising development?
Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia have something else in common, too:
They are about to make history on The Bachelorette.
On Tuesday night — after both Season 26 finalists tore into Echard for the way he treated them toward the end of their runs on The Bachelor — host Jesse Palmber dropped the bombshell to close out this year’s After the Final Rose ceremony.
The two women will star in the same season together as they search to find love, an ABC first.
The network confirmed as much a few hours via press release.
The press release read as follows:
“After unwaveringly supporting each other through a devastating dual breakup in the season 26 finale of The Bachelor, fan favorites and fierce women Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia will stand by each other’s side yet again as they set out on a journey to find love.”
Indeed, both Gabby and Rachel just got screwed over by Clayton.
The Missouri native told each woman he loved them… and then slept with each woman in a Fantasy Suite… and then dumped them both after he learned that he still had a chance with Susie Evans.
“I don’t have the same needs as Susie. I’m not Susie, and neither is Rachel,” Gabby told Clayton on Tuesday night, months after filming concluded.
“So you have to treat us as individuals.”
On the After the Final Rose special, she added:
“Watching it back, everything is so muddled, and you are clearly pitting us against each other.
“It really seems like a competition, which I had expressed to you that I didn’t want to be a part of.”
Recchia, meanwhile, sat alongside Palmer and had to relive her very emotional break-up with Echard on screen.
When she got the chance to confront Clayton, she told The Bachelor how much he disrespected both herself and Gabby, stating of his behavior:
“It was almost as if you cast us aside as quickly as you could to [get to] the person you loved the most.”
This was, to be frank, exactly what happened.
Later this year, however, with Palmer once again serving as host, Gabby and Rachel will control their own destinies.
“I’m so happy for her, I truly am. It’s crazy, this is insane. I’m excited to do this journey with you.
“We did it once together and we’ve been through the most crazy experience together,” Recchia said on the After the Final Rose special, adding:
“I’m a girl’s girl through and through so having a friend by my side, there’s nothing I could ask more.”
When asked what she looks for in a romantic partner, Recchia said “someone that’s supportive and someone that loves me,” while Windey chimed in as follows:
“I think someone who’s emotionally intelligent mature, who can challenge me [and a sense of humor].”
As for whether they could see themselves falling in love with multiple suitors — as Echard alleged happened to him — Windey replied:
“I think so, I think having learned I would just have a little more discretion with my words.”
The upcoming season of The Bachelorette will premiere on July 11.