Melissa Rycroft, the victim of a shocking season finale twist on reality dating show ‘The Bachelor,’ appears today on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ to describe the feeling of being dumped on national television.

Fans of ‘The Bachelor’ were shocked when Jason Mesnick dumped his chosen fiancee for the runner-up, Molly Malaney, in the taped epilogue to this season’s competition. Rycroft, the original winner, explains to Ellen that her relationship with Mesnick had already soured by the time the dramatic ‘After the Final Rose’ special was filmed. “Once we got back, we both kind of sat in the real world, and we were talking about how [our relationship] was different,” she says. “He kind of gave up, and I couldn’t understand why at the time. Now I do – because I think there was someone else involved.”

“And that is where my feelings of betrayal came in,” she continues. “I knew on the night ‘After the Final Rose’ [aired], I wasn’t getting dumped. We had already ended the relationship and that was mutual.”

Rycroft shares that she was suspicious of the reasons for the distance between them. “I repeatedly asked him, ‘Is Molly involved in anything?’ And when they moved up the taping of ‘After the Final Rose,’ I was going, ‘Why did we move the taping up? What’s going on?’ I asked Jason, ‘Am I going to be blind-sided by anything? Is there anything you want to tell me?’ And he said, ‘No, gosh no.’ And the second I went out on that stage, he goes, ‘P.S. it is Molly.’ And I went, ‘Bastard!’”

“Being a girl, you get that feeling,” she says. “Anybody that’s been cheated on, you know. And being a woman, I got that feeling, because he just backed away from me, and I knew he had contacted her. There had been at least one contact that I knew about, where he was ‘checking on her,’ and so it was just in the back of my mind. I would just casually ask, ‘Are you talking to her? Have you talked to her? Tell me, just be honest.’ He kept saying no.”

Rycroft admits that she contacted Mesnick after the special aired to gain closure – though she wishes she hadn’t. She says, “I felt like I needed to apologize for getting that angry with him, but at the same time, I said, ‘I hope you know why I got that mad.’

Don’t count on a friendship blooming in the wake of the televised breakup. “Jason and Molly don’t quite have the characteristics of [people] I would want to be friends with,” she says. “On a level, they both did betray me. I understand it was a break-up, and I’m not mad about that. We all get broken up with, but to be lied to….”

Despite the feeling of betrayal, there is a silver lining for Rycroft. The dethroned ‘Bachelor’ winner says she is dating a new guy named Ty. “Because of the privacy and everything going on, we haven’t really been able to explore a new relationship, but now that everything is over, I’m so excited,” she says.

“I’ve known him for two years and kind of done the dating on-and-off. He has been my biggest rock and supporter throughout this whole process. He’s become my best friend.”

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