When Nick Viall was the bachelor he gave his final rose to Vanessa Grimaldi. The couple split five months after the finale aired.

Recently, Grimaldi’s said that she felt pressured to get engaged to Viall at the end of his season. Viall responded by saying he doesn’t really care.

Nick Viall | Paul Archuleta/Getty Images

But when Viall had Kaitlyn Bristowe (another ex of his from her season of The Bachelorette) on his podcast, The Viall Files, he really opened up about what went wrong in his relationship with Grimaldi.

How Vanessa Grimaldi’s bad blood with other ‘Bachelor’ contestants got in the way of her relationship with Nick Viall

The former bachelor spoke about how Grimaldi wanted him to defend her amidst the drama between her and contestants Rachel Lindsay and Raven Gates. Viall felt uncomfortable doing so.

“When I ended up with Vanessa she, for different reasons, she didn’t get along with Rachel and Raven. But I guess we didn’t last as long because I suddenly was like ‘I’m sorry, I’m not gonna like–that’s an insane point of view.’ I would try to defend her. I would definitely not defend her the way she wanted me to defend her,” he explained.

Viall continued: “And that was, quite honestly, one of our biggest problems early on that we fought very much so where it was like, ‘Why don’t you have my back?’ and like I do but this is an insane argument.”

Kaitlyn Bristowe experienced the same issue with Shawn Booth after her ‘Bachelorette’ season

Bristowe told Viall that she empathized with him because it was frustrating for her to see her season winner, Shawn Booth, still so focused on feeling hostile feelings towards Viall when she just wanted him to focus on her and their relationship.

“You also realize that you had these relationships with other people and you can’t deny that. It was there and we had that and everybody saw it. Like I get it, it must be hard for the other person but at the end of the day you have a choice and I chose him and he chose me and then he chose to focus on you [Nick Viall],” she said.

Viall says he tried to stand up for his fiancé. but he just didn’t agree with what she wanted him to say.

“Like with Vanessa I was trying so hard to protect this relationship but I had certain things where I was like ‘This isn’t OK. I’m not OK with this. And I can’t, in good conscience, agree to do this because it’s not healthy.’ But where do you draw the line?” he asked.

Both Viall and Bristowe agree that “it is hard to win.” In fact, “it sucks.”

Today, Bristowe is happily with fellow Bachelor Nation member Jason Tartick and Viall is dodging dating rumors left and right.

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