The contestant came clean before his turn in the Fantasy Suite.
Xavier Bonner had his reasons for staying mum. ET's Denny Directo spoke to the former Bachelorette contestant at the "Men Tell All" taping last month, and he shared his reason for not telling Charity Lawson about his past infidelity before their Fantasy Suite date.
"I think that's a really taboo topic to get into. So I was kind of scared to talk about it, but I wanted to show her that [I was] willing to risk all in order to earn her trust," he told ET. "That and show her exactly the man I am... I wanted us to be able to have those tough conversations and make headway and make sure that that's possible in our relationship."
Charity, however, told ET that she wishes she'd known about Xavier's past behavior earlier on.
"I would have loved that on our one-on-one date. That would have been a beautiful time," she said, before expressing her shock over Xavier's reveal given how her Hometown date with him went.
"Obviously at Hometowns getting that reassurance from his family, I asked all those questions, I brought up questions about past relationships and that never came up," she said. "... [I] felt like I was being blindsided and caught off guard with the things that was being shared with me."
Given that, Charity decided to send Xavier home, something that he said he was "not expecting."
"It is what it is. I think at the end of the day everything happens for a reason," he said. "... She did the best thing for her."
Even in retrospect, Xavier told ET that there's not "a lot I would have done or said differently" during that conversation with Charity.
"I think that I would have said it in a way that was more eloquent. I think it just came off very brutal and that was not my intention at all," he said. "My intention was just to bear my own heart and soul to her and earn that time with her by just being honest, vulnerable, genuine, about everything I was feeling. I was feeling some fears and I tried to communicate [that]."
When it comes to the crux of the issue -- whether or not Xavier would cheat on Charity if they ended up together -- he said, "I definitely trusted myself to not cheat on [her], that's what I was trying to convey to her."
"But I was trying to say [that] it's difficult because there's a fear of breaking that trust with somebody and I did that in the past," he said. "There's that fear."
To Charity, though, the whole conversation "made no sense," especially how Xavier didn't seem to be "trusting himself."
"I was trying to get him to understand, like, 'Do you hear what you're saying?'... I was losing it," he said. "... The fact that I'm like, 'OK, we're here now. I'm not faulting you for mistakes that you made in the past, but let's move on. Where are we at in this moment?' And the fact that you're here, a week away from a proposal, and you don't know if you can trust yourself? Let's leave. Let's get up."
Now Charity is left with Joey and Dotun, and with a big decision to make as to whether or not she sends Aaron home for a second time after he flew to Fiji to profess his love.
"You will want lots of tissues," she teased of the upcoming finale. "It's gonna be an emotional ride, emotional rollercoaster that final week. But I will say as many tears as I shed, it was 100 percent all worth it. It's going to be so beautiful."
Watch Charity Lawson's journey for love on season 20 of The Bachelorette, which airs Mondays on ABC. Stay up to date on all the drama by following along with ET's coverage of the series.
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