Sarafiena, Zoe. Disney/Matt Sayles (2)
Sarafiena Watkins is expressing remorse for the comments she made about Zoe McGrady’s dress on The Bachelor.
“I hated that. Wasn’t my best moment,” Sarafiena, 29, said on the Thursday, February 20, episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast of her comment. “I was hard on myself for so long about it. But I’m also giving myself some grace with it because I’m human and we all say some things we don’t mean, or, we’re like, ‘That was s—– in the moment.’”
The drama between Zoe, 27, and the rest of the women came to a head during a group date cocktail party on the February 10 episode of The Bachelor when Sarafiena made a comment about her fellow contestant’s dress.
“That’s the shortest dress I’ve ever seen in my life,” Sarafiena said to a group of women on the couch, which Zoe overheard.
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“I get up and grab a drink for, like, one second and I hear people talking and Sarafiena says that my dress is too short,” Zoe explained in a confessional. “Seriously? That’s not [a] girl’s girl, you know? I don’t get it. I wasn’t asking for a comment on my dress, and I wasn’t even talking to her.”
Zoe appeared emotional as she vented her frustrations to fellow contestant Chloie Costello and ultimately brought up her concerns about people “who are being fake” to Grant Ellis.
“It’s been a long day. It’s actually very stressful for me,” Zoe told Grant. “I think obviously, with the first group date, that was me in my element. Athletics. Obviously, you saw last week where there’s, like, the competitiveness and since then, there’s little jabs at me constantly. Some girl’s like, ‘Oh, your dress is so short.’”
Grant interjected to ask who made the comment, to which Zoe opted not to give him a name. “I don’t want to see people throwing jabs, I don’t want that. So I appreciate you coming to me and telling me. I see you trying and putting yourself out there, and I appreciate that,” Grant said. “But don’t stop being you, alright?”
Now, the moment is water under the bridge for Zoe and Sarafiena’s mended friendship. After the comment, the duo had a conversation — which led them to realize they shared similarities.
“In a weird way, it actually got Zoe and I to bond because we realized that we were feeling the same things, but we were just articulating it in different ways,” Sarafiena said on Thursday. “I was going through things at that time because it is such an emotional, rocky journey. We, sometimes as people, don’t know how to communicate well. I really do think, in a weird way, it got us to really see each other in a different light.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
