Nicole Young Explains Why She Brought Emma Hernan Affair Rumor Up on Selling Sunset

During season 8 of Selling Sunset, Nicole claimed that Emma had an affair with a married man, discussing the rumors with several castmates ... without giving Emma the chance to respond.

Now, after facing backlash from fans -- and how she handled the rumors -- she's speaking out.

"This was information given to me by a credible source," Nicole told Netflix's blog, Tudum. "I don't mean that as an excuse. I own the fact that I said it, but this is not something I made up."

Nicole was asked why she brought it up, to which she responded, "Initially, it wasn't something I was comfortable with or planned on doing. I only talked about this because I assumed that Emma knew [that the rumor had been circulating]."

"I'd also been told there were going to be certain things that would be shown to support that," she added. "For example, at the party featured in the Season 7 finale, the woman who brought this information to me confronted Emma -- it was a filmed event when both Emma and I were mic-ed up."

"This was not something I just came up with," she emphasized.

Nicole also offered an apology for bringing it up on camera.

"I want [Emma] to know that this wasn't something I was maliciously doing to take her down," Nicole said. "That's not something that makes me feel good and certainly wasn't the goal."

"Being a part of a reality show, we're obviously often put in situations where we need to discuss things or people that maybe we wouldn't normally discuss or wouldn’t want to bring up," she continued. "But it's part of doing our job.

"It's tough because we don't have a friendship, so I don't know if any of my words would even be received," Nicole went on. "It's also tough when she has close friends surrounding her. They really want to use any possible situation to come at me aggressively with another round of attacks."

Emma also shared her side of the story, breaking her silence last week with E! News. She told the outlet she was "completely blindsided" by the allegations, which she also vehemently denied.

"Oh, this evil human," she said of Nicole. "I was completely blindsided by all of this. I had no idea that this was going on the entire season. I did not find this out till right before, when we got the screeners. It's disgusting."

She went on to call Nicole "a pathological liar and just an all-around disgusting human being," before claiming that there is no truth to the rumor.

"There's zero truth to this," Emma insisted to E! News. "I wasn't given a voice to even defend this and show the receipts, show all the proof."

She also noted that she has "no desire to speak to that evil human," saying Nicole's actions were "disgusting."

"You're an awful human being, and you owe me a sincere apology," Emma said. "Let me just tell you that this isn't over. This is so damaging. What she has done to me. It's disgusting. It is slander. It is defamation."

Some of Emma's castmates have come to her defense amid the rumors, including Chelsea Lazkani and Chrishell Stause who slammed Nicole for not giving Emma the opportunity to address the allegations during the show.

Chrishelle, for her part, accused Nicole of "spew[ing] a disgusting lie about a bestie that is categorically FALSE and SUPER damaging" on the show, and also said that she "will NEVER work on a show with her on it again."

Chelsea, meanwhile, called Nicole the most diabolical piece of [trash] I've ever met," before adding, "you wanna start a rumor about Emma because all the rumors about you are true. Okay let's see how this works out for you."

The pair also called out the show's production company, with Chrishelle threatening to quit the show if it meant filming with Nicole.

Catch up on all the drama on Selling Sunset, streaming now on Netflix.