‘Temptation Island’ Star David Benavidez Calls His Night With Payton and Sam an ‘Awful Mistake’ (Exclusive)

Temptation Island‘s David Benavidez has nothing to say to the people criticizing him for hooking up with Payton Burgess and Samantha Hoffman while testing his relationship of three years with girlfriend Kate Griffith — he agrees with them completely. Ahead of Thursday’s all-new episode of the hit USA reality show, David broke down for PopCulture.com what actually happened that night and the personal revelation that followed.

“I would say it’s well-deserved,” David said of the backlash he’s gotten from viewers who watched him make out with Payton and get naked in bed with both women — although he insists no sex actually occurred. “I made an awful mistake that night. … I have nothing to say to [critics] because I agree with them.”

“I failed right away,” he continued of testing his relationship with his “best friend” and partner Kate. “I can’t tell you how s—ty I feel.”

The morning after his hookup with the two women, David remembers “bawling [his] eyes out” for the first time in his memory due to a “terrible feeling of guilt,” but watching the admittedly alcohol-fueled night back was even harder than he expected.

“It’s a really disgusting feeling,” he told PopCulture.com, saying that having been “borderline black-out” drunk that night, “Some of the scenes I’m watching, I don’t remember.”

While David can’t reveal just what happened between him and Kate yet, he revealed there’s been a lot of “reflecting” on his own flaws and behavior since that night.

“It made me take a step back, like, ‘Wow, who the hell am I?’” he confessed. “Is this the kind of person I want to be?”

Looking back on his time on Temptation Island, David realizes now that he had more to deal with internally than just the trust and communication issues he and Kate first were looking to address.

“I think I needed to be in a better place with myself before I allowed somebody else in,” he said. “I don’t think at the beginning of Temptation Island I knew everything about myself to allow me to have the best possible relationship.”

Temptation Island airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on USA.

Photo credit: USA Network