Big Brother's Vince Panaro Admits He Was 'Disrespectful' to Girlfriend, Reveals Relationship Status

The reality TV contestant, who competed on the recently-wrapped Season 27 of the CBS show, shared a new YouTube video on Monday morning -- reflecting on his time in the house and opening up about how his behavior affected those on the outside.

Specifically, he addressed criticism he received from fellow houseguests and viewers for his actions with costar Morgan Pope, as the pair got very close with each other, all while he had a longtime girlfriend watching the show from home. In the video, he revealed the status of his relationship with Kelsey after the finale, while also admitting his actions were "disrespectful."

"The more common question that everybody is asking me, is 'What is my relationship like?' Kelsey and I have talked everything out," he claimed in a 10-minute video. "We have talked about everything and anything possible, and we're currently taking time to process everything individually, and, you know, figure out what things look like after that."

He shared that, coming out of the house, his main priority was "talking to Kelsey," and praising her for having "the respect for me to be the first person that I see on finale night and to stick around and have those conversations with me, when she could have left and never spoken to me again and thought that whatever her perspective was was the end of the line for me."

"That's what she could have done, that's what a lot of people might have done. She was there to first, above everything else, make sure I was okay mentally coming out of there, knowing the backlash that I was going to be receiving," he continued. "But at the same time, she has enough respect for herself to take her own independent time and figure out what she wants and to process her own experience individually, and I respect that, too."

Saying there's been "a lot not true" and "some true" commentary about him online, he explained that living in the Big Brother house is a "strange, indescribably unique environment" where "lines started to blur and I felt like any level of affection was normal in that alternate reality I was living in."

"And some people will say, 'How can you be that stupid, how could you not see it?' And to them I can only say, 'You'd be surprised, I can be that stupid, I guess,'" he continued, before admitting that, "in hindsight" he can "100%" see how his actions were "disrespectful to having a girlfriend."

"And I'm sorry for that. To be honest, that's on me, 100,000%, because I'm the one who set the boundaries. I was the one who was in a relationship, I was the one who said this is normal," he added.

Explaining why he got so close with Pope throughout the season, he said their relationship "helped me mentally" while he was on the inside.

"But outside, I could see that not being respectful to having a girlfriend. I should have been extra cautious. The fact of the matter is I wasn't," he continued. "I needed that level of comfort. I had somebody in the house who was providing me with that, who was an amazing game player and friend and I knew she was going to be a force to be reckoned with, I knew she was going to start winning competitions and I knew it would keep me safe. It's game play and it's also human, but I was just seeking that and I needed that. That's all I can say about that."

He insisted he never "wanted to embarrass anybody" with his actions, especially "not Kelsey, because she didn't sign up for the show."

"I'm not okay with hurting people, even if I didn't mean to, because I still hurt people and that's not okay. That's something I feel really, really bad about and that's something I have to live with," he concluded. "It wouldn't matter whether we were on the verge of breaking up before going into the house or whether we were on the verge of getting engaged. The fact of the matter is, I was in a relationship entering that house ... I set those boundaries ... that's all on me. And I understand the way that it looked."

Overall, he still called his time on the show an "incredible experience" that left him an even "bigger fan" of the series.

Panaro placed second, losing to Ashley Hollis in the finale.