Kathy Swarts Explains Her Bachelor in Paradise Confession About Sleeping with Another Person While Married

One thing about Kathy Swarts is she knows how to win!

On the July 15 episode of Bachelor in Paradise, the Goldens joined the cast in Costa Rica to kick off their search for love. For their first challenge all together, the contestants anonymously shared their wildest secrets, and whoever claimed the most jaw-dropping confession won a date in the VIP suite.

“I sat down and thought, ‘Okay, I'm going to win this,’” Kathy tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. “I'm a little bit competitive, I like to win.”

With the goal of winning in mind, Kathy revealed that she slept with another person while her husband was in the house.

Admitting that she knew “these words” would catch people off guard, Kathy teases that she left out a few crucial details for shock factor.

“It's all true. I did sleep with someone else while my partner, and that is my husband, was in the other room," she said, referring to her late husband Daryl Swarts, who died in 2019. "The person I slept with was my almost-two-year-old who was projectile-vomiting, and I told my husband, who had to get up for work, ‘Go in the other room. I got this.’ 

“I thought, ‘Okay, the youngins, there's more of the youngins than the Goldens, and what do they think and talk about? It's got to have something to do with sex,’” she explains of her thought-process. “And there came my story. But it was true. It just happened to be my son, not another man.”

This is the first time the Bachelor in Paradise cast has included Golden contestants in its 10 seasons.

Despite some public apprehension about the change, Kathy says that was never worried.

“I've known some of these young ones who have been on my podcast, Golden Hour, and so I knew them a little bit, and I knew that this would be successful,” she insists. “Because we came ready to engage and have fun and find love. Guess what? That's what the young ones are there for too — have fun, engage and hopefully find a connection."

She adds, "So, it was not oil and vinegar, it was just this smooth melding of two groups of people that really had similar goals in mind.”

One of the biggest perks of bringing different generations together was the opportunity learn from each other.

Reflecting on her experience, Kathy shares the one piece of advice she gave the younger participants “many times.”

“I said to them, ‘If you're red and your partner is blue, sometimes it's going to be red, sometimes it's going to be blue and sometimes you're going to compromise and it's going to be purple,’" she explains. “But what a lot of people don't think about is, sometimes when it's red and you're blue, or if it's blue and you're red, you know what that's called? It's not compromise anymore, it's sacrifice.”

Kathy says the Goldens also brought an extra element of excitement to the group. Host Jesse Palmer even said recently that he thought they “infused the most energy in the show."

“There's been a preview of me doing a body shot, and I'm just going to leave it, you're going to have to watch and see how that all came about,” Kathy teases. “But as I keep saying, the Goldens, our clocks are ticking, my clock is ticking. I don't have 30 years to shop around. Chop, chop, let's get to it! So, I think all the Goldens came with that attitude.”

New episodes of Bachelor in Paradise air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.