‘Double Shot at Love’: Pauly D Defends His Shocking Final Choice During Tension-Filled Reunion

Pauly D may have chosen to roll solo at the end of Double Shot at Love in a shocking last-minute twist, but the Jersey Shore star stands by his decision not to follow through on either of his love connections even months later. During Thursday’s reunion of the MTV dating show, immediately following the finale, the perpetual bachelor defended sending Nikki and Derynn home at the final cab ceremony to a less-than-happy Nikki.

Explaining his last minute decision to stay single, Paul “DJ Pauly D” DelVecchio said, “For myself, I just had to do myself for once. I’m always putting everyone else first all the time … so this time, at that moment I was like, I’m rolling solo after this, because being put on the spot with so many feelings, it was just overwhelming.”

Nikki, whom Pauly feared was too “intense” during the final moments before his change of heart, didn’t take the rejection well.

“I’m pissed, because I put my heart on the line,” she told him. “I am an emotional person, I am very vulnerable, it’s easy for me to open up, but I don’t open up to just about anybody.”

Accusing Pauly of leading her on, Nikki said she thought he was joking in the final moments before he sent her packing. But the DJ insisted he was on the same journey to find love as the women in the house.

“I don’t know what I’m doing in this situation, I can only go by what I feel,” he insisted. “I appreciate every single girl in this building putting themselves out there, but Vinny and I did the same. We put ourselves out there. And why didn’t I let her know day one? That’s unfair, because I was trying the process and trusting in that.”

Vinny stepped in to defend his buddy, saying, “No one knew exactly how this was gonna play out. They signed up for a show too where that was a possibility of happening, where you could get hurt. So it happened the way it happened.”

And while Pauly and Nikki may have connected after filming ended, the MTV personality admitted he ended up blocking his former flame after the “paragraphs and paragraphs” got to be too much.

Can’t get enough of Pauly D and Vinny? Jersey Shore Family Vacation Season 3 premieres July 11 at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.

Photo credit: MTV