The Bachelor runner-up Litia Garr has broken her silence about her relationship with Grant Ellis and how she was completely blindsided by her brutal Final Rose Ceremony dumping.
"I feel really good now. It was such a wild ride -- lots of high highs and low lows -- but I'm happy. I feel so relieved that it's aired and the chips have fallen... Things are starting to settle a little bit," Litia shared during a recent appearance on the "Relationsh*t with Kamie Crawford" podcast.
On The Bachelor's Season 29 finale that aired in late March on ABC, Grant -- who was in love with and torn between his Final 2 bachelorettes -- ultimately dumped Litia in second place and got engaged to Juliana Pasquarosa.
Litia, who was completely shocked by Grant's final choice, claimed on The Bachelor: After the Final Rose that Grant had repeatedly assured her, from Week 2 on, that she was going to be his winner.
"It didn't show that after the puppy date, when we were walking... to our dinner, he said, 'It's crazy that I met you, and it's crazy because I know that it's you! I can't believe I met you on a TV show because I know that you're my wife. I could stop this whole thing right now,'" Litia recalled.
"I was looking at the audio people and the camera guys and the producers, and I was like, 'That's for sure something he's not supposed to be saying, right?!' I was thrilled... [but I had] to start catching up to where his feelings were because he seemed so sure."
Litia, afraid of being disappointed, said she had asked Grant -- who called her "a once-in-a-lifetime woman" on the show -- to stop making declarations about her being The One in case he ended up choosing someone else.
"And his response was, 'Well, that's how I feel. I feel like I have to tell you those things because I want you to feel reassured and know that it's you so that you don't ever stress.' He was like, 'I'm scared that you're going to change your mind,'" Litia claimed.
"I was like, 'Well, my mind is not going to change. I live in a house full of girls that love you. I live in a house where everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.'"
And according to Litia, Grant never "let up" on his promises.
In Madrid, for example, Litia alleged that Grant had given her a journal to write down her feelings for him -- which she now believes was stroking Grant's ego -- and he whispered that he was "falling for" her.
"It was more of the same, like, 'When we have kids,' and, 'We're going to have these dogs.' And still, even at that time, I was like, 'If he was this sure, then he would send everyone home.' There is a precedent set for that," Litia reasoned, seemingly referring to how Colton Underwood had picked Cassie Randolph prematurely and wanted to stop the process on The Bachelor's 23rd season.
But Litia said she knew Grant "wanted to do a good job" at being The Bachelor star and "pleasing everyone."
"The whole time I felt like he was trying to reassure me because it was me, and the rest of the time, he was following through on the commitment he had made to be a part of the show," Litia explained.
Litia went on to share, "Any time I pulled away a little bit, he would try to get me back and pull me a little bit closer... He kept assuring me that it was me, and the more he said it, the more I believed it, and his actions always matched."
The Bachelor viewers saw for themselves that Grant had given Litia multiple one-on-one dates and group-date roses during a particularly short season.
"The other women were very much like, 'It's you,' but we didn't talk about it. None of the women knew that he FaceTimed my mom, and I didn't tell them all of the things he said to me," Litia claimed.
Litia alleged that Grant confirmed his feelings for her during their final date in Punta Cana, which was only hours before the Final Rose Ceremony.
"He was leaving my room. That was a whole longer conversation... but he was saying things like, 'I can't wait for the cameras to go away and we can just be together. I just want to hang out and talk and chat and not feel like we have to talk about heavy stuff all the time,'" Litia claimed of her final night with Grant.
"We had light moments, but the things that were shown definitely were the most important things that were being discussed."
Litia continued: "When leaving my suite, I was like, 'Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. I can't believe it, like, we're getting engaged,' because of all the things he had just said to me during the whole conversation. And he was like, 'I know. I can't wait. I love you. I love you. I love you,' when he was being, like, rushed out the door."
Litia now wonders if Grant was just "people pleasing," even though "it was a lot to say" to a woman in love.
Litia went on to share "the most jarring" part of her televised breakup with Grant.
When she arrived at the Final Rose Ceremony and approached Grant in her beautiful gown, Litia said she thought to herself, "If it's not me, he won't let me speak. After everything that he said, hopefully he would just let me know before I do my big declaration -- he knows what I'm about to say."
Litia recalled standing there for a moment in silence with Grant.
"And he was like, 'They told me to let you talk first.' He, like, prompted me to give my speech. And so I was like, 'Oh, okay, like, great. I'll just say everything that I need to say,'" Litia explained.
Litia added how Grant kissed her, and "that was the other thing" that really bothered her about the way their split went down.
"There's, like, a million things the whole time why I thought it was going to go a different way, but that was the part to me [that was the worst]. On the drive away from the breakup, I was like, 'He asked me to give the speech,'" Litia said.
"And keep in mind that he has a mind of his own."
Litia revealed that her breakup conversation with Grant lasted "45 minutes" when typically that scene is filmed in about five minutes for The Bachelor.
"They want it to be quick. He was standing there talking at me," Litia said.
"Me saying, like, 'Come on now.' I was looking for him, like, 'Where are you? Wait, what? Come on, come back.' It's not me, but have a conversation with me about it and actually talk to me," Litia vented.
"And it was just him kind of trying to manage my perception of him more than it was him walking me through how he got there."
Litia said she hasn't spoken to Grant since their reunion on After the Final Rose but she has, in fact, listened to all of his post-show interviews.
"He's doing his best to be a good partner to the person he's in a relationship with now. And so I think that's kind of the place where he's coming from with all this," Litia explained.
"To me, everything that I said on the couch at After the Final Rose, I said during our breakup. I knew that I signed up to be a part of a TV show, and that that came with an audience that was invested in the story of our relationship... I just kind of wanted to add context to why I was surprised."
Since Grant is now happily engaged to Juliana, Litia said she understands why Grant is "approaching" post-show press the way he is, but she doesn't "agree" with it.
"At the end of the day, I know what happened, and my reality is aligned with the camera operators' reality and the audio person who listened to the mic and everyone in post-production who edited the show. They're all aligned," Litia insisted.
While Litia wants the world to know she's "not crazy" or delusional, she said she's not trying to prove anything to anybody.
"This happened six months ago for me, and so I was happy to discuss it at After the Final Rose for the benefit of everyone who had watched and was invested in the story. But it doesn't matter to me what anyone else's perception is, because I know that it's real," Litia noted.
When looking back on her The Bachelor journey as a whole, Litia said "everything worked out exactly as it was supposed to."
Litia also said she's not angry that Grant said, "I love you," to two people; she's more disappointed in the other promises he had made her.
"I felt peace that day when we broke up... He's in a happy relationship and I'm happy for them, so it's really none of my business," Litia said.
Litia actually admitted that she loves how everything ended.
"I don't love how he went about it, but I think it's definitely the right choice for us not to be together," Litia concluded.
"I feel very confident [in that]. He made the right choice, 100 percent. And that's not any shade to anyone else."
