Maria Georgas has fired back at Nick Viall and his wife Natalie Joy for calling her "delusional" and for suggesting Nick had something to do with her The Bachelor casting.
Maria previously explained on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast how, when The Bachelor's 28th season was airing, someone had sent her a photo of Nick, Ashley Iaconetti and Sydney Gordon together, which made her question if the trio were friends who had conspired against her.
Considering Sydney was Maria's enemy on Joey Graziadei's season of The Bachelor, a part of Maria wondered if Nick and Ashley were friends with Sydney and had influenced producers to portray Maria as the villain.
"It kind of shocked me to hear his response to what I said on 'Call Her Daddy.' I thought he would laugh that off and appreciate that I was being supportive and saying kind words," Maria said during the May 14 episode of the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast.
However, Nick -- who became friends with Maria on social media prior to his stint on The Bachelor's 21st season and predicted Maria would end up being a Bachelor villain if she ever got on the show -- firmly denied that he had control over Maria's edit on Joey's season.
And Natalie went as far as to call Maria "delusional" for even coming up with such an idea.
"You know, to each their own. If that's what you think, that's okay," Maria shared with Kaitlyn.
Nick had said on the May 7 episode of his "The Viall Files" podcast, "Maria used to always ask me to get her on the show, and I did tell her [long ago] that I could see her being the villain. And somehow, that turned into Maria thinking that in my zero free time and not knowing that she was on [Joey's season] that somehow I made it my mission to [make her look bad]."
Natalie then added, "It's just giving delusional, honestly, at the end of the day."
But Maria claimed her widely-reported conspiracy theory about Nick and Ashley was "such a joking matter" to her.
"All I said, in a laughing matter, joking -- ha ha, he ho -- and I literally didn't even mention it to anyone. I didn't even message Sydney asking, 'Sydney, are you friends with this person?' I was just shooting the sh-t with ["Call Her Daddy" podcast host Alex Cooper] saying, 'This is what I thought in the moment,'" Maria recalled to Kaitlyn.
"Seeing that photo, I was like, 'Holy t-ts! The guy who said this and the girl who did this are now in a picture together -- what the hell is that?!' But I wasn't being serious!"
Maria accused Nick of deciding to "run with that" and treating her conspiracy theory like "it was a serious thing." (Ashley I. had also previously slammed Maria's theory).
Maria snapped, "He actually thought and felt like he had this pull. First of all, no one's going to make me a villain. The only person who is going to make me a villain is me, and I'm not, and that's why I wasn't."
But Maria admitted the thought of Nick possibility sending a woman -- in this case, Sydney -- to go after her crossed her mind.
"I don't know, but it was a joke!" Maria insisted. "It was a joke."
Maria also insisted she's always been "open and honest" about her desire to compete on The Bachelor for years and that it wasn't Nick who got her on.
"No, [my casting had nothing to do with Nick]. Absolutely not... I always wanted to be on the show. I really love the show. People were actually responding very well to that, like, 'I respect the honesty.' A lot of girls would be like, 'I got asked,' or whatever," Maria explained.
"But, for me, no. I was like, 'Get me on this show! What do I have to do?' And it's funny because Buddy over there was like, 'She kept asking me to go on the show.'"
Maria confirmed "Buddy" was a reference to Nick, and she insisted, "If it was as easy as just asking him to be on, I probably would've been on sooner. There's no help in that, so I don't even know why he would say that or mention that."
Maria went on to vent, "Buddy, no, I did this all on my own. So thanks for that -- for trying to throw that out there like it was a dig! I already talked about how I liked and wanted to be on the show, thank you very much. Get over it!"
Maria recalled of her The Bachelor casting, "I had a contact with one of the producers when I was going to be on the show in the past, and as soon as I found out it was Joey, I was like, 'Please put me in the running.' I was such a last-minute addition."
Maria said after a couple of interviews, she was called and told to pack her bags just three days before filming began last year.
Maria told Kaitlyn that she was surprised by Nick's jabs at her because she had wished him well and assured fans there's no animosity between them during her "Call Her Daddy" podcast appearance.
"I said I was happy to see him grow. I said all of the nicest things. We haven't spoken in a while, but I thought out of mutual respect -- because we didn't end badly and just went out separate ways... that him seeing me on the show, he'd be like, 'Oh my god, Maria, good work!'" Maria explained.
"But when he was breezing right past me when doing his recaps, okay that's fine. He didn't say anything bad about me... but [recently], people have been coming to me saying, 'How are you going to let him say this sh-t about you?'"
Maria said she'd been giving Nick the benefit of the doubt and decided to "stay silent" -- until now.
Nick had also complained of Maria on the May 7 episode of "The Viall Files" podcast: "I did not expect to face that kind of questioning on the week of my wedding." (Nick's wedding took place on April 27).
Maria quipped on "Off the Vine" that she "didn't know the timeline" of his wedding to Natalie.
"Sorry for how that worked out. I didn't know when sh-t was going to air, and I don't have your wedding on my calendar. Sorry, I don't, but I thought I was being as pleasant as I could," Maria said with a laugh.
"I just, at the end of the day, was putting rumors to rest. If one of us didn't 'unlike' the other's Instagram photos, if one of us didn't have anything to hide -- I mean, the one of us who has nothing to hide is sitting in this room with [Kaitlyn]."
Maria concluded, "A wise man once said, 'Don't tell lies about me, and I won't tell truths about you!'"
