Zach Shallcross‘ journey as The Bachelor concluded on Monday night with an engagement to Kaitlyn “Kaity” Biggar, a 27-year-old ER nurse from Austin, Texas.
“I can no longer say I’m falling in love with you, because, Kaity Lane, I am so in love with you. You are my world,” Zach, 26, declared. “The love I feel for you is something I could’ve never imagined and something I thought a lot of my life I would never be able to deserve. I love you so much. I love you with all my heart. You’re the face I want to wake up to every morning. I want to go through life with you and only you. Kaity, I want to be with you forever…You’re the only one I want in my life… Kaity, will you marry me?”
“Absolutely,” she replied.
Zach is the first Bachelor lead to get down on one knee since Peter Weber proposed to Hannah Ann Sluss during the show’s 25th season in 2020.
The episode also featured one of the most gut-wrenching breakups in Bachelor history, when Zach confessed to Gabi that “knowing you and falling in love with you has made me a better man, but…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” a tearful Gabi said repeatedly as Zach tried to finish his thought, adding, “You’ve known,” in response to his denials that he was “stringing her along.”
“That was so humiliating. I was strung along,” she added in an emotional confessional. “I put myself out there, yet again, and I’m not good enough.”
As for the happy couple, they plan on moving in together in Kaity’s hometown of Austin this summer and they revealed that they plan to tie the knot in 2025.
The Bachelorette season 20, featuring Charity Lawson, premieres Monday, June 26 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
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