Joelle Fletcher, 'The Bachelorette' Matt Klitscher/ABC
Jordan Rodgers, a former NFL quarterback, and Robby Hayes, a former competitive swimmer, were JoJo Fletcher's final two.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the Season 12 finale of ABC's The Bachelorette.]
The Bachelorette star Joelle "JoJo" Fletcher handed our her final rose on Monday and in return, she accepted a diamond engagement ring.
The last two men standing were former pro football player Jordan Rodgers, 27, and former competitive swimmer Robby Hayes, 27. After admitting that she had fallen in love with both of her final two men, JoJo ultimately picked Jordan, who then got down on one knee and proposed.
"Joelle Hannah Fletcher, will you marry me?" he asked.
"I'm shaking!" she said while accepting his proposal and finally uttering the words: "I love you. I'm in love with you."
"This is the best day of our life," they told the camera while hugging before an exotic backdrop in Phuket, Thailand.
Jordan, who has been the seasonlong frontrunner, also received JoJo's "first impression rose" on the first night. Though her attraction to Jordan was immediate, the road to finding their happily ever after was still bumpy — and one that left a heartbroken Robby reeling in JoJo and Jordan's rearview mirror.
During the final episode, a torn JoJo introduced both Jordan and Robby to her family when her mother, father, two brothers and sister flew out to meet their daughter in Phuket, Thailand.
"I'm standing here in Thailand with two men that I love," she said to the camera, explaining why she won't tell them, "I love you" just yet. "When I'm with Robby, I think of Jordan and when I'm with Jordan, I think of Robby. I want the type of man I would always be able to trust."
But the introductions did not go off without a hitch, as JoJo's mother expressed reservations about Jordan. While Jordan backed out when it came time to ask JoJo's dad for permission to propose to his daughter, Robby sat down with both of her parents to tell them how much he loves JoJo, a move that brought them both to tears.
“She will be my number one priority of life in all that I do,” he said when asking not just for her hand in marriage but for “all that is Joelle Fletcher.” He continued, “If I’m fortunate enough to receive that blessing, I can promise you both to protect her and to care for her for my entire life.”
"She trusts you. She believes in you. She loves you," her dad replied. "I am honored if you would be my son-in-law."
When speaking alone with her family after, JoJo worried about feelings of regret after they told her Robby seems like a "better fit" and more like husband material.
"If I ended up with Jordan and if things ever did get tough and it didn't work out, I'd always regret not going with Robby," she said in tears. "And if I went with Robby, I'd always wonder, what if this other life, what if that was the life I was meant for?"
She was shocked to learn that Jordan didn't ask for her father's blessing.
"In my overnight with Jordan, he talked about how important that was and there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to take that moment," she said. "Why didn’t Jordan do that?”
On the day she was set to receive a proposal, JoJo still didn't know which man she would pick as she read letters written to her by each. Both men were prepared to go on bended knee, as Jordan and Robby selected Neil Lane engagement rings.
Ultimately, JoJo questioned herself and her ability to make a choice between the two.
"I feel like I'm having a panic attack," said JoJo in tears to the camera about making a decision. "I don't know if there's also a reason that I am having this much of a struggle. I pray to God I'm not making a huge mistake."
JoJo, who had her heart broken when she was a runner-up during the last season of The Bachelor with Ben Higgins, called the experience "cruel and twisted irony" going into the finale. Ben broke the rules by telling both JoJo and his eventual winner, Lauren Bushnell, that he loved both of them.
Going into the finale, JoJo admitted to the camera that she, too, had fallen in love with both of her final two men. "I'm sick to my stomach knowing I feel so strongly about both of them," she said. "It pains me to know that I'm going to have to put someone through the same heartbreak that I felt."
When the moment finally came, Robby was first out of the limo. "When I leave today, I will be engaged," he said, having no idea what he was walking into.
"My heart yearns for you and I undoubtedly am wholeheartedly in love with you," he said. "It's love so deep it makes me weak in the knees."
He added, "I want to be with you forever, I will love you forever."
She interrupted him, saying, "I can't let you get down on one knee. I can't let you do that because I don't want to take that moment from you."
"Robby, I woke up this morning wanting it to be you. Every day, I've been wanting it to be you," she said through tears as his face dropped. "I fell in love with you but for some reason, my heart is somewhere else."
When he asked her what was missing, she couldn't answer: "You deserve the type of love that you have given me. You don't get how badly I wanted it to be you."
Covering is face as she hugged him, he told her: "All I want is for you to be happy. Hopefully in the end you are."
The rejection came as a shock, especially after their seemingly perfect last date where they spoke openly about the future. "You have a heart of gold," JoJo had told Robby, who said he wants to make her the happiest woman in the world. "I feel that love, it's the craziest thing Robby. I don't have doubts with you."
She even told the camera, "It hasn't been until the love that he has for me that I did realize what I truly deserve and what my worth is — that's how you know it's true love. I see a lifetime with him. And that makes me excited to say 'Yes' to Robby."
For his part, Robby told the camera he will fall to his knees when he hears JoJo finally tell him she loves him. “There’s a part of me that says, 'It can’t not work.' The only reserves I have, is that maybe I’m blinded by my love."
When Robby's worst fears came true, he hugged her goodbye and told her, "Don't settle. Please don't settle."
In the limo ride away, he could barely wrap his head around the events. "I've been waiting for her to tell me she loved me and she did, but she didn't let me get down on one knee. In what world is that allowed to happen?"
"I don't even know if me telling him I loved him matter," she told the camera. "He deserved to know."
JoJo, after crying hysterically, then collected herself before Jordan's arrival.
"The only thing that's getting me through this moment is seeing Jordan," she said. "Because I am so crazy in love with him."
During their final date together, Jordan had said he knew he'd make it to the finale after their first two dates. But when she pressed him about why he didn't initially ask her father for his blessing, she wasn't satisfied with his answer.
"I want you to know that it's right and I want your family to know that's what you want, and then I will feel comfortable asking your dad," he said.
The conversation left her feeling scared: "Now I have all these doubts again."
He added later, "I'm okay taking that leap of faith because I love you that much and I don't want to lose you."
But she said it all makes her wonder if he's being "100 percent honest with himself." Adding, "I don't know if you're 100 percent ready for an engagement, but I know you want to be with me."
When it came time for him to take that walk, he fulfilled his promise that he would get down on one knee. Earlier in the day, he called JoJo's parents and finally asked for their blessing, which they gave him — and which he told her in his note.
He told her: "I fell in love first with just us. The person I could be right away with you.
"You made me believe that love doesn't need to have scripts and there's not one way to draw it up. I'm so unbelievably in love with you.
"I'm going to wake up every morning and chose you over, and over, and over again."
And she said: "Jordan, I love you so much. I've been waiting to tell you that I love you. I didn't want you to get down on one knee without telling you that."
ABC's After the Final Rose special kicked off immediately after, featuring JoJo and Jordan together, for the first time, as a couple, and JoJo reuniting with a scorned Robby face-to-face for the first time since the finale.
Robby was first to take the hotseat during the live post-show, telling Chris Harrison that his immediate thoughts in Thailand were of shock and of being "blindsided."
"A wave of disappointment," is how he described it, adding that he felt no clarity, even watching the episode back. "In that moment, I was thinking about all the future plans we had made, all the times we had discussed looking forward to after this ... I had to watch [all] that drift away over that horizon."
Telling the host that he was confused, he explained that he was so confident going into the proposal that he was convinced he was the only guy left in Thailand.
"I wanted it to be her, but unfortunately for me, it wasn’t," he said. Still, he added: "I respect the hell out of Jordan, he’s one of my great friends, and I respect her decision-making."
Are you happy with JoJo's pick? Sound off in the comments section below and share your thoughts on Twitter using the #THRose hashtag.
