A friend getaway to Santa Barbara turned into a tense few days of un-relaxation when Jesse Lally and Michelle Saniei’s pending divorce threw a wrench in the group fun on Season 2 of The Valley. But that wasn’t the only underlying tension in the group.
“We were all kind of going through Jax [Taylor] just heading into the facility, and there was so much chaos and so much fracture,” Jesse said in The Valley After Show video above. “Like, we had so many other things to focus on.”
But Jesse hoped the beautiful mansion on the ocean would help bring the group together.
“You walked in that front door and all you saw was the Pacific Ocean. Like, if you can’t be relaxed in a situation like that…” he added before breaking down the reasons why the trip was rocky from the start.
Michelle Saniei explains why she didn't take Jesse Lally's "white flag" peace offering
Jesse shared on the After Show his idea to bring peace to the group—but it hit a snag.
“I ordered 50 white flags from Amazon. I thought that was a fantastic idea,” he said. “[Michelle] wouldn’t take the white flag. Shocker.”
Michelle explained the reason for her unwillingness to participate was because of the rumor Jesse spread that she slept with a billionaire for $1,500 a night—and that she felt he was ignoring what he did.
“He’s always been like that in our relationship,” she said. “He’ll do something really bad and then the next day just pretend it didn’t happen. And he wants me to just move on like he never said those things.”
Janet Caperna felt like Jesse’s offering was more of a manipulation.
“It feels like kind of another way for him to like blame Michelle, too,” she said. “Be like, ‘See! I wanted peace! I brought the white flags and she’s the one who doesn’t want to wave the white flag.’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, you just tried to take her out and ruin her reputation, so yeah, she doesn’t want your little white flag, dude.’”
Jesse insisted that he’d planned to apologize for the rumor at the start of the trip but changed his mind when he saw Michelle’s demeanor.
“I was planning on taking full accountability for that whole situation…and the energy changed,” he explained. “I could tell the energy changed the second she showed up to Janet’s house. She wouldn’t even look me in the face. So, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. It was an extremely toxic, extremely highly emotional situation to be in. Take the f—king white flag. She still won’t take it a year and a half later.”
