Why Maria Georgas Used a Fake Excuse to Leave Joey Graziadei's Season of 'The Bachelor'

Former Bachelor contestant Maria Georgas has a confession to make: she came up with an excuse to leave Joey Graziadei on purpose.

"This is tea. This is tea, b****," Georgas excitedly told "Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper on the May 1 episode of the podcast.

Recalling her time on the show — she was the first of the final four to be eliminated in March — Georgas explained that she actually set up the whole kissing drama with Graziadei in order to have an excuse to leave.

"Jenn [Tran] kissed him on the group date. I went up to her and I just knew Joey and I were never gonna be endgame. So I told Jen that day that I was gonna use that as an excuse to leave Joey," Georgas told Cooper. "And that's when I'm like, 'Ugh, Jenn kissed Joey. I am disgusted.'"

Bachelor fans will remember Georgas telling Graziadei on the show: "I'm not kissing you tonight because I saw you kiss her and it scared me." She also told him that he "need[ed] to learn [his] lesson."

Reflecting on the moment, Georgas told Cooper on Wednesday that her thinking at the time was all about her finding "a way out" of the situation.

"I was very close to [Jenn] and I just felt like I needed a way out, so I used Jenn kissing him in that moment that 'pissed me off,'" she said in air quotes, "as an excuse to leave."

Cooper, for her part, spoke on behalf of Bachelor Nation fans when she told Georgas that people "could tell … that there was something else going on" with Georgas during that scene.

Georgas — who also revealed on "Call Her Daddy" that she turned down the opportunity to be the next Bachelorette — was ultimately eliminated after Hometowns, which is where she felt she put her guard down.

"I feel like it would be dishonest to you to move forward with the amount of doubts that I have," Graziadei told her upon her elimination, during which she cried.