Bachelor in Paradise alum Pieper James has revealed why she doesn't want to marry Brendan Morais yet, even though she's in love.
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One fan asked Pieper, 24, when she and Brendan, 33, want to tie the knot, and she replied, "Eventually," according to BachelorNation.com.
Pieper explained, "I'm not sure. It's not at the top of my priority list like it used to be. I feel like marriage is fed to girls as this thing that's so amazing and will fix all your problems."
Pieper confirmed, "I love Brendan," but continued, "I'm happy with where we are headed right now. I know for at least me personally, I need to 'get my sh-t figured out' and be a little more independent in all aspects of my life before I'm ready for us to be married."
"I'm sure he would agree," she concluded.
Pieper went on to share her personal goals for 2023 after making a vision board.
"I have a lot of goals... Professionally, I want to get back to working a full time position but I also want to make really quality content on [Instagram] and TikTok, things around fashion hair and travel that excite me and that I like working on! Not just throwing up on the Internet for the hell of posting," Pieper shared.
"I want to travel and just do more instead of tell myself I'm going to 'do' then talking myself out of it because it might be hard or I may fail."
On Bachelor in Paradise's seventh season in Summer 2021, cameras appeared to catch Brendan using Natasha Parker as a placeholder while waiting for Pieper -- whom he dated for about two months "without labels" before filming began -- to arrive in Paradise.
Brendan, while covering his microphone on the beach, admitted to "incriminating" himself by essentially admitting to Pieper he had downplayed their pre-Paradise romance to other cast members and had to do "certain things" in the process to ensure they could reunite on the beach.
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RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOWPieper and Brendan were also taped talking about their influencer status and the number of social-media followers they had prior to the show.
Natasha, who developed strong feelings for Brendan along the way, called the bachelor "a liar" and a "manipulative" clout-chaser considering Brendan had insisted he and Pieper just had a "super casual" fling back home and had only hung out twice.
Several Bachelor in Paradise 7 cast members, including Demi Burnett, told Brendan and Pieper to leave the show if they had any "dignity" left, which resulted in Brendan complaining his co-stars were making "a pathetic attempt to intimidate" him.
But since they were not wanted on the beach and the environment had become toxic, Brendan and Pieper left the beach on their own terms and said they'd continue their relationship at home.
Once the footage aired of Brendan betraying Natasha, he lost more than 100,000 Instagram followers and Pieper's follower count dropped about 9,000. As for Natasha, she gained nearly 400,000 followers, Entertainment Tonight reported.
After a bumpy ride on the show, Pieper told Us Weekly in September 2021 that she and Brendan were "working through things" in the real world and "taking it day by day."
E! News reported later that month the pair had split in order to focus on themselves and quiet public backlash, but during an October 2021 appearance on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast, Pieper denied the breakup report and set the record straight.
"That's just all they are, is rumors," Pieper said at the time.
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Pieper said she and Brendan intentionally kept their romance under wraps after leaving Paradise together.
"The reason we didn't choose to go public [with our post-show romance] like everybody else on the show was just because, obviously, our experience was a little bit different. We tainted our own experience in that way," Pieper explained.
She continued in her conversation with The Bachelorette alum Becca Kufrin, "So we are kind of working on ourselves and each other, and we're focusing on being a couple before taking that public. Because obviously, this hasn't been an easy thing to go through."
Pieper acknowledged how she and Brendan saw "flaws" in themselves when watching their Bachelor in Paradise season back.
"Obviously I wasn't there the whole time and I didn't see it all, so seeing it all play out [is a lot]," Pieper admitted. "But we're together... That's where we stand right now."
Pieper told Becca on her podcast that all the drama actually strengthened her bond with Brendan.
"We were dealing with conflict kind of with each other but also from an outside perspective. It did make us stronger [because] right away, we knew how we both communicated in arguments... and how we dealt with, like, exterior bad things," she said.
After Brendan and Pieper's stint on the show, Brendan released a lengthy seven-minute video apology on his Instagram account and was adamant about the fact he and Pieper had never been in an exclusive relationship prior to Paradise.
And Pieper -- who previously claimed, when drama was at its peak, she had no regrets -- said in late 2021 that she was "truly sorry" for hurting Natasha and anyone else through her actions.
"I'm not saying it was, like, peaches and rainbows the whole time," Pieper noted of her Brendan relationship.
"But it was good to kind of have that feedback and know down the line if something comes up how we both deal with those things."
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"At the end of the day, I'm happy with my decision. I'm happy with Brendan, as controversial as that might be to say," Pieper told Becca.
"I just kind of did what I always do and followed my gut and my heart and connected the dots. That's the experience I got."
After Brendan and Pieper left the show, three couples got engaged on Bachelor in Paradise's Season 7 finale: Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt, Kenny Braasch and Mari Pepin-Solis, and Maurissa Gunn and Riley Christian.
Joe and Serena are currently married, and Kenny and Mari are planning their wedding. Maurissa and Riley, however, split.
Prior to appearing on Bachelor in Paradise, Pieper competed for Matt James' heart on The Bachelor's 25th season in early 2021, and Brendan competed for both Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams on The Bachelorette's sixteenth season in 2020.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
