Former Bachelorette star Gabby Windey came out on The View and revealed she was in a same-sex relationship.
Windey was featured as a contestant on The Bachelor Season 26 before becoming The Bachelorette in 2022 alongside Rachel Recchia.
During her appearance on the ABC daytime talk show, Windey opened up about “seeing someone for a couple of months” who she had kept private “because it is a bigger story and a bigger conversation because I’m dating a girl.”
Windey said that after trying to make her relationship from The Bachelorette work out and her turn on Dancing with the Stars there was a whisper within her “that just got louder and louder.”
“I didn’t really know to pay attention to it,” she added. “I think when this happens, there’s some shame surrounding it. So I had to navigate through the shame. Like, what is it? Where’s it coming from? But ultimately, like I said, I always just want to kind of like, do me do what I want figure it out later.”
On coming out and sharing her love story publicly, Windey said, “People know me and have kind of related to me on the previous shows I’ve been on and I really appreciate them. Knowing how much people really care, I just want to be honest, I don’t want to live and not be living my full truth. I don’t want to do that to myself. I don’t want to do it to my girlfriend. I don’t want to do it to other people who really care about me and feel like they know me.”
Windey noted that she came out on The View because she wanted to control her own narrative and have a discussion about it amongst supportive women. She also added that her family knows about her new relationship after she FaceTimed her parents to tell them the news.
“Both of their jaws dropped to the floor,” Windey said of the reaction her parents had when she told them she was dating a girl. “But they were like, ‘We just want you to be happy.’ They’ve really been supportive. I do kind of come from a conservative family and a very heteronormative world. I was on dating shows, dating men. I was a Broncos cheerleader for five years. My whole world was kind of like male gaze-y. So I feel like it’s not something my parents ever imagined for me. So I think it’s going to take time, just like the rest of the world. Just like for me, you know, it took me a while to like, stop questioning and just start trusting. And I’m fully trusted. And I’m here.”
Windey also shared a photo of herself and her girlfriend on Instagram.
Watch Windey’s interview on The View in the video posted below.
Content Source: deadline.com