Plus -- did they hook up on the way to Las Vegas?
The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart has gifted us with delightfully cringey moments week after week, but Monday's episode was really something special.
Emotions intensified this week as couples made love confessions... and Matt provided what might be the most awkward response to someone saying they're falling in love with you.
"You're very courageous for speaking your truth, and I appreciate you doing that," he said, as Rudi's face fell before she got out of her seat and cried.
Watching that moment back in an interview with ET's Lauren Zima, Rudi couldn't help but laugh -- "I love that for me," she joked, adding it was "one of the most awkward things of my life" -- but also got emotional about the sting of that rejection.
"I am not the type to tell a guy how I feel first. Let me just tell you, I've never really done that before," Rudi shared. "So of course the one time I decide to do it, it's on national television and he doesn't say it back."
"It sucks to see that back, I'm not gonna lie. But I still don't regret it. I was honest and I feel like I would regret it if I didn't say it," she explained.
Watching the show, Rudi can see how much she really cared for Matt -- who clearly wasn't moving at the same speed. Their Las Vegas performance to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's "Shallow" impressed Monday's celebrity judges (Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham, Train's Pat Monahan, and Evan Ross and Ashlee Simpson Ross), and while Matt gushed about how he wants to continue playing music with Rudi, he didn't reciprocate her feelings of falling in love.
"I was just waiting for him to say something, and then he did and when he said what he said, that was kind of like a little jab in my stomach," Rudi remembered.
"He slapped me even worse!" she said, referring to the moment earlier this season where she awkwardly "gave Matt a "love tap" across the face. "That's what I get."
The pair has certainly gone through ups and downs on Listen to Your Heart -- but seemed to be on the same page after spending the night together on the way to Las Vegas. "No, we did not [hook up]," Rudi clarified. "It was some wild snuggling. We got a lot of good, passionate makeouts in there."
After connecting on that level, "I was hoping he was going to say he could see the potential there... That's all I was hoping. I wasn't hoping for him to say, 'Oh, I'm falling in love with you,' or you know, anything crazy, but maybe just a little bit more of a reassurance that I was heading in the right direction with him," Rudi shared. "That's kind of what I wanted to hear."
Rudi is hoping for a better response from Lady Gaga, if the superstar (and Bachelor fan) ends up watching her rendition of "Shallow."
"No way [will she weigh in on my performance], because if she did, I would just, like, drop to the floor," she confessed. "I don't even want to think about a possibility of that, because, like, that freaks me out. Just the possibility of it... I love her so much."
Rudi was on the "highest high" after nailing her and Matt's performance. "I felt it," she said, likening her and Matt's onstage chemistry to what Gaga and Cooper had. Those lovey-dovey feelings may be fleeting, however. The promo for next week's season finale shows Rudi in tears again.
"I think just [Matt] being as transparent as possible with me... I think he could've maybe done a little bit better of a job," Rudi expressed. "But I also think it was hard for him... he's not a bad guy and I don't think he did anything intentionally, but would I have appreciated maybe a little bit more of a heads up as to where he was before that? Yeah, I would've."
The 24-year-old singer added, "I think this next episode on Monday is gonna be a little rough."
"[It's going to be] a lot of drama. A lot of tears. Some good tears, some bad tears," Rudi admitted. "And a lot of really good moments too."
With Ryan and Natascha sent home, just three couples remain on The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart: Rudi and Matt, Jamie and Trevor and Bri and Chris. The show's season finale airs next Monday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
RELATED CONTENT:
