The Bachelor star Joey Graziadei has revealed if he had doubts Kelsey Anderson was going to say yes to his marriage proposal.
Joey and Kelsey got engaged on The Bachelor’s Season 28 finale, which aired Monday night on ABC, and they’re still together and growing in love.
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But throughout the filming process, Joey’s mind and heart were plagued with fears and doubts that his final choice was going to leave him or not reciprocate his feelings of love, mainly because Charity Lawson had brutally dumped him at the Final Rose Ceremony of The Bachelorette’s 20th season.
While Joey appeared very confident in his relationship with Kelsey going into the Final Rose Ceremony of The Bachelor’s 28th season, he admitted on the March 26 episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast that he was still battling a little anxiety.
Joey explained he was feeling “a mix of emotions” to the podcast’s co-hosts Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.
“I would say that I still had that, ‘Wow, is this going to be it?!’ But I was confident,” Joey shared.
“Our last night that we had together was so great. It was more of now I was in a different position, because I was reassuring her a lot through that time. So I was trying to stay strong and confident, like, ‘This is here. If you want this to be here, I want it to be here.'”
joey recalled feeling “a lot of emotions that last day” in Tulum, Mexico, but he added, “I was confident, but I think any guy who gets down on one knee has that thought in the back of the head, like, ‘Is she going to say yes?'”
Joey admitted he “thought that for a second,” but he and Kelsey were “definitely in a good spot in that moment” and so he felt “good.”
Serena asked her husband, whom she had met and got engaged to on Bachelor in Paradise’s seventh, if he had that thought when he popped the question on the beach in Mexico.
“Oh yeah, of course,” Joe said with a laugh.
Kelsey, meanwhile, recalled a “funny” moment when she was following the path and walking out to Joey waiting for her at the Final Rose Ceremony.
“I couldn’t find him! I was looking everywhere! I was like, ‘Where is he?!'” Kelsey said.
“That’s actually why I had some doubts,” Joey confessed, “because she wasn’t looking at me.”
Joey remembered thinking, as a result, “This is going to be bad!”
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Kelsey admitted she “couldn’t find” Joey, who added how Kelsey didn’t have any eye contact with him.
“Finally I found him,” Kelsey quipped.
Joey explained, “They had a whole route for her that she walked. She just kept looking straight at the production, and I was like, ‘Is something about to happen? I don’t even know what’s going on.'”
Kelsey reiterated how she didn’t know where she was going but they “made it through” and she ultimately found The Bachelor star.
Kelsey also noted it was “very surreal” to get engaged to Joey at the Final Rose Ceremony.
“I was telling all my friends going on, I was like, ‘I might be back next week, guys, don’t worry. I’ll probably be right back.’ I came on just thinking that, if anything, it would be a really cool life experience,” Kelsey shared.
“But I was open to the process, and it worked out perfectly for me! I’m just really happy about where we are.”
Joey and Kelsey also revealed that they want a long engagement and they’ll be moving in together in New York City this summer.
Joey proposed marriage to Kelsey on The Bachelor finale after his runner-up, Daisy Kent, predicted that Joey was going to dump her and so she bowed out of the competition gracefully during the Final Rose Ceremony in Tulum.
“Falling in love with you has been so fun and I do love you,” Daisy told The Bachelor star. “But the thing is, you’re not going to choose me.”
Joey immediately broke down into tears, confirming that Daisy’s gut instinct was correct.
“I know that you know I’m not your person,” Daisy said. “And as much as that hurts, umm, I know you said you want what’s best for me, and so I’m going to do what’s best for me — and I’m going to go.”
Joey proceeded to reunite with Kelsey at the Final Rose Ceremony.
“I love you,” Joey gushed.
“There is something about you. You have this infectious energy that makes me smile. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. I know during this time that we’ve built a very strong flame, and the only reason I know why that flame will never go out is because you’re my light.”
“I have known for a while that I’ve wanted to have a beautiful life,” he continued, “but I truly didn’t know how beautiful that life could be until I met you.”
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Joey then said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Kelsey, and he asked her to marry him.
During the After the Final Rose special, Kelsey and Joey were gifted a trip to Jasper, Canada, and Joey gushed of his fiancee, “I now have my ‘forever,’ and I’m the luckiest guy there could be… I don’t know how I’m going to have a boring day of life with her by my side.”
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.