Vanessa Lachey Defends Love Is Blind’s Trevor, Thinks He ‘Didn’t Realize the Scope of What This Meant’ (Exclusive)

Warning: This story contains spoilers from the season 6 finale of Love Is Blind.

Vanessa Lachey is trying to find some grace for Love Is Blind‘s Trevor Sova.

The 31-year-old returned to the series for Wednesday’s night reunion and set the record straight about secretly having a girlfriend while he filmed the show.

Speaking to PEOPLE about Trevor’s return, Vanessa says she’s not entirely sure he understood the impact of his actions.

“I think Trevor is figuring himself out, and I think he didn’t realize the scope of what this meant, either,” the NCIS: Hawai’i star, 43, explains. “He does talk about that at the reunion, and this is something that Nick and I really try to emphasize when we first see them in the pods: ‘Be honest for yourself, so you can allow yourself this true experience, and to find that person that loves you no matter what. But also, because when this part happens and when it hits Netflix and people around the world know about it, there’s no skeletons in your closet. There’s no hiding behind anything. If you come out and just own who you are or what’s going on, then you’re in a good place.'”

Admitting that she’s just “guessing” about Trevor’s mentality, Vanessa reiterates, “I don’t know that he really understood the scope of it, and I’m hoping that he does now, and sees that could be hurtful to both women.”

“But yeah, he’s going through a lot, and I’m proud of him for coming and saying his piece,” she continues. “It’s just not fair to everyone if you’re holding back or lying to other people there. And also, that was a position that maybe another guy could have had, that maybe someone else could have met their partner. You know, all the other women who didn’t meet a guy, maybe that spot that he took could have been another guy. But maybe he didn’t think that way.”

She then adds: “You’ll have to watch his reaction at the reunion and deduce your own reasoning for his thought process. But yeah, human nature is fascinating, and I think that’s also a wonderful reason this works, so we shall see.”

During Wednesday’s season 6 reunion special, Trevor became flustered after Vanessa and fellow co-hosts Nick Lachey confronted him about having “someone on the outside” while attempting to find his person on the reality dating experiment.

Nick and Vanessa pulled up the texts that Trevor allegedly sent to his girlfriend, which read in part, “I love you more than anything in this world. And I’m going to marry you,” and “I hope you know how much I love you. And had to pretend that this wasn’t real life to say anything I said.”

Trevor struggled to find the words before finally explaining that he “was not dating her, ‘dating her’ technically, I never said, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ before the show started, but… obviously, we were close.”

“She was the typical girl I’d go for in real life,” he continued. “I told her before [that] I want to go on this to try and experiment with something else. There’s no justifying that — that sounds f—ing horrible what I just said.”

When Nick, 50, pointed out that Trevor said he “loved” his girlfriend before entering the experiment and that a man wouldn’t say that to a woman he wasn’t serious about, Trevor attempted to reason, “I did care about her… Her and I were so f—ing toxic.”

“I’m toxic as well, I admit that. I need a lot of therapy,” he added. “I know I f—ing need to change. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Trevor’s ex, Chelsea Blackwell, also got a moment to address him, saying, “I’m definitely not here to grill you by any means. It didn’t work out for us. I had this intuition of why I didn’t pick you and I couldn’t explain it but now I can.”

Trevor insisted that his feelings for Chelsea were genuine and said he didn’t come on the series for fame or to progress his career. “I did come here for good and bad reasons. I can’t take back that I went on the show. I’m glad I went on the show because it taught me a lot about myself,” he said.

Nick later pointed out that they won’t “tolerate” anyone coming on the show for the “wrong reasons” before dismissing Trevor from the stage.

In addition to Trevor and Chelsea, almost all of the season 6 cast — Johnny McIntyre, Amy Cortés, Jimmy Presnell, Clay Gravesande, Amber Desiree “AD” Smith,  Jeramey Lutinski, Laura Dadisman, Sarah Ann Bick, Kenneth Gorman and Brittany Mills — returned to update fans on what’s been happening in their lives since cameras stopped rolling.

In a series first, the reunion was filmed in front of a live audience and also featured the return of several Love Is Blind alums, including season 1’s Giannina Gibelli, season 3’s Alexa Alfia Lemieux and Brennon Lemieux as well as Colleen Reed and Matt Bolton; season 4’s Kwame Appiah and Chelsea Griffin Appiah, Brett Brown and Tiffany Pennywell Brown, and Micah Lussier, and season 5’s Izzy Zapata.

According to Vanessa, having those people in the room brought about a special kind of “energy” as they filmed the reunion special.

“There’s a lot of eyes on this one. And so it was really beautiful to bring the family back together,” she said. “And they are so fun in the reunion because they add another layer that I don’t think anyone will expect.”

“They’re already sitting out there, and they’re in couches, and they’re facing the stage, and there’s also a live audience that we had, so you feel that energy,” she continued. “But the great thing was we were able to film this over five hours and allow people to say their piece, say their story from beginning, middle to end, no rushing, no missing anyone. And then in the end, they put together a beautiful reunion that I think everyone’s going to love.”