The Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart singers Julia Rae and Savannah McKinley both pursue Brandon Mills

Julia Rae and Savannah McKinley battled for the love of fellow contestant Brandon Mills on Monday’s episode of The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart.

Their rivalry even carried over into the show’s central competition, judged by singers Kesha, 33, and Jason Mraz, 42, and former Bachelorette couple JoJo Fletcher and Aaron Rodgers, 31 and 36.

Brandon, 34, set all the drama in motion by choosing Savannah, 35, at last week’s rose ceremony, then telling Julia, 27, he would pursue her after learning she was interested in him.

Julia had always liked Brandon, and immediately told Savannah about her conversation with him, silently gloating over the fact that Brandon was interested in her instead of her rival.

But when Brandon ended up picking Savannah as his musical partner for the show, Julia lost her cool, calling Savannah ‘disingenuous’ and ‘fake as he**,’ as she ignored her own relationship.

By the end of the episode, it was clear that both Julia and Brandon still had feelings for one another, despite professing their interest in the people they were singing with onstage.

As the show began, host Chris Harrison, 48, shook things up by saying that anyone who was ‘not serious about taking that next step’ in their relationship should prepare to leave.

In a massive game of musical chairs, the show’s singles scrambled to figure out who they really wanted, sometimes deciding to dump the person they’d picked at the rose ceremony.

Nashville yoga instructor Savannah was blissfully unaware that Brandon liked anyone else, but that ended when Julia, a patient advocate from Philadelphia, told her what Brandon had said.

Gabe Baker, a 28-year-old community organizer from Houston, had been coupled up with music instructor Ruby Jane Smith, 25, from Columbus, Mississippi, but told Savannah that he dug her.

Savannah told Gabe she didn’t feel a ‘romantic spark’ between them, and he understood.

‘My heart knows that since Day One it was always Brandon, and he wants Julia, so I have to go home,’ Savannah said privately. ‘But I never thought that it would be at the expense of Gabe.’

Gabe told Ruby Jane that his heart had ‘been with someone else,’ and both of them decided to leave, as Savannah cried and told the show’s cameras, ‘Can I have two seconds, please?’

She forgave Brandon, a security officer from Louisville, Kentucky, after he said, ‘I’d like to move forward in this journey with you, if you’d like to do this. Or at least give it a f***ing shot.’

That meant that Julia had to figure out if she wanted to stick with her rose ceremony partner, musician Sheridan Reed, 27, from Austin, Texas, and after confessing all to him, she did.

After the dust settled, there were seven couples left. They were told that they would each perform a song onstage each week, and be judged on their chemistry and performance.

The winning couple would record songs with a ‘noted’ music producer, then tour together, which Jamie Gabrielle, a 21-year-old hostess from Nashville, called her ‘ultimate dream.’

From the moment assignments were doled out, it was clear that Julia was miserable, as she drank wine and watched Sheridan croon Backstreet Boys’ As Long As You Love Me.

Behind her, she heard Savannah and Brandon doing Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me.

‘I’m struggling with this right now,’ Julia told the cameras, starting to cry. ‘It feels icky. It doesn’t feel right. What I had with Brandon is what I’m missing with Sheridan. 

Irritated, she confronted Savannah and told her that she didn’t think she was genuine, to which Savannah retorted, ‘The way that I am should not affect you.’

Savannah explained that just knowing she and Brandon had chosen each other gave her the permission to relax in the relationship, which made her more likely to be affectionate.

Julia repeated that it all seemed disingenuous, and added that she felt like she was ‘getting attacked’ in the conversation, protesting that she didn’t have feelings for Brandon anyway.

‘Julia’s catty, jealous, insecure, and at the end of day, Brandon chose me,’ Savannah noted.

Before rehearsals began, Ryan Neal, a 28-year-old ophthalmic technician from Dearborn Heights, Michigan, went on a date with pop singer Natascha Bessez, 33, from New York City.

The smitten pair visited House Of Blues in Los Angeles and performed onstage with country singer Chris Lane, 35, singing his hit Big, Big Plans to a packed house.

Chris had written the song to propose to his wife Lauren Bushnell Lane, 30, the onetime fiancée of season 20 Bachelor Ben Higgins, 31.

Ryan and Natascha kissed against a wall afterward, with him calling her ‘his other half.’

Everyone was stressed in rehearsal, and some couples seemed more connected than others, but they tried to shake off their nerves when they hit the stage for the live performance.

The first couple to duet were Rudi, a 24-year-old studio vocalist from San Antonio, Texas, and musician Matt Ranaudo, 32, from Encino, California, who did Shawn Mendes’ Fallin’ All in You.

Their connection was evident on the sexy song, though it was clear, as JoJo noted, that they were still figuring out who they were as a couple, something that worried Rudi.

Bri Sauss, a 28-year-old waitress from Provo, Utah, and Chris Watson, a 30-year-old wedding singer from Tampa, immediately kissed after their solid cover of Leon Bridges’ Beyond.

‘You did not take your eyes off of her, and it was the most beautiful, genuine thing I have ever seen,’ JoJo told Chris, as her husband Aaron urged Bri, ‘hold onto that one.’

‘He’s everything, and I really am falling in love with him,’ Bri returned.

Danny Padilla, 26, a celebrity impersonator from Sherman Oaks, California, smooched executive assistant Bekah Purifoy, 25, from Washington, DC, several times onstage.

But as they sang the Lumineers’ Hey Ho, they looked ‘more like friends,’ Rudi observed, and when Danny kissed Bekah again afterward, she gently patted his face and pushed it away.

‘Oh,’ JoJo moaned as she watched it, telling them, ‘I feel like there’s a strong friendship between you two right now,’ something Bekah had earlier told a more ardent Danny.

Brandon and Savannah turned in a serviceable performance on their Cheap Trick song, as both Julia and JoJo privately observed that Savannah didn’t seem attracted to her partner.

‘They seemed more concerned with performing and the audience, and I think people see it,’ Julia snarked, before Kesha noted, ‘I kind of don’t know romantically exactly what’s going on.’

‘Ding ding ding,’ Julia told the cameras, sure that her song with Sheridan would be better, and going on to convince the judges of their chemistry with a buoyant Backstreet Boys performance.

‘Sheridan, I feel like you have love in your eyeballs,’ Kesha offered, as Sheridan admitted that he did feel ‘a certain kind of way about Julia.’

‘I could feel that,’ Kesha affirmed, ‘and your voice is beautiful, but it almost comes second to how I could just tell that you guys feel about each other.’

Jason compared their vibe to that of married singers Trisha Yearwood, 55, and Garth Brooks, 58, or famed duet partners Dolly Parton, 74, and Kenny Rogers, who died this year at 81.

Ryan and Natasha were smoking hot on their version of Rihanna’s Stay, but Jason cautioned Ryan that Natasha’s career could ‘take off’ by itself, adding ‘she is soaring all around you.’

Ryan’s onetime flame Jamie then performed Maren Morris’ I Could Use A Love Song with Trevor Holmes, a 29-year-old social media marketer from Thousand Oaks, California.

In rehearsals a nervous Jamie had flubbed a line and swore, crying as she worried she would hurt Trevor’s chances, and during the live performance, she held his hand throughout.

‘I’m so proud of you,’ Trevor said after they finished singing, as Jamie told the crowd that she had self-esteem issues, and wouldn’t have been able to go on without him.

‘They’re so cute,’ Kesha murmured, telling Jamie, ‘I wanna give you so much love, and as a person who knows how hard it is to have self-love, you should feel so proud of yourself right now.’

‘That means so much coming from you,’ Jamie replied, adding on her way out, ‘Is this even real? I feel like I’m in a dream,’ and joyfully falling down to the ground in her white dress.

‘When I’m with Trevor, and I’m performing, I literally feel like I love him,’ she confessed.

In a unique twist on Bachelor tradition, the judges decided who would be leaving in the show’s rose ceremony, though each contestant still had to have their rose accepted by their partner.

Julia and Sheridan made it through, as did five other couples, and she pointedly announced, ‘I cannot imagine taking the stage with anyone else,’ before giving him her rose.

They both wished that Savannah and Brandon would go home, so they could concentrate on their own relationship and not have it be ‘muddied’ by Julia’s feelings about the couple.

But in the end it was Danny and Bekah who left, kissing awkwardly as they parted ways.

‘Damn,’ Julia said, adding in voiceover, ‘I’m just wondering if Brandon’s still thinking about me.’

In a preview of next week’s show, Brandon admitted to Savannah that he and Julia still had feelings for one another, as Sheridan said he was at his ‘breaking point.’

The Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart will return next week on ABC.