Ben Higgins has revealed his biggest regret when looking back on his whole The Bachelor experience.
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"It was a weird and wild time... And as we talk about that season, I do regret that I didn't enjoy it more," Ben admitted during the May 28 episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast co-hosted by Serena Pitt and Joe Amabile.
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Ben, 35, selected Lauren, 34, as his The Bachelor winner and the pair got engaged on the show's Season 20 finale, which aired in March 2016.
After The Bachelor wrapped, the pair filmed a spinoff about their relationship and pending wedding titled Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?, but they announced their split in May 2017, about six months after the show's finale aired on Freeform.
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When reflecting on his post-The Bachelor life, Ben shared with Joe and Serena, "I didn't know what to do with [my Bachelor fame]."
"At 26-years-old," he continued, "I was like, 'Nobody knows what this Bachelor thing is going to do 10 years from now. I can't leave my job yet. I need health insurance. I don't have enough money to pay for health insurance on my own.'"
As a result, Ben immediately went back to his full-time job in software sales. And in addition to resuming his career, Ben and Lauren also filmed their Happily Ever After? spinoff to make a little extra money.
"[I thought], 'Let's see where this spits us out, and then, the rest will kind of settle,'" Ben shared.
"I was so focused on not knowing what the risks were to being on the show and not knowing what money would come in or wouldn't come in, that I just worked all the time. I didn't enjoy a lot of the things that other [leads] were enjoying. I was just so nervous."
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Both Joe and Serena agreed it was probably tough for Ben to predict which opportunities would come his way and also how long those projects would be fruitful and last after The Bachelor.
Ben also revealed he had to turn down multiple job offers due to his The Bachelor contract with ABC.
Ben claimed, for instance, he was offered "ridiculous" money to host a morning radio show but he declined the opportunity in fear it would "cost" him his relationship with Lauren.
"I did say 'no' to that, and there were other things I did say 'no' to -- not necessarily that were that lucrative or that beneficial, but you are under contract for a year when you're the Bachelor," Ben explained.
"Right away, you get off the show and, yes, you might have some lucrative deals and some things come through, but you have to say 'no' to them often times because you still have an obligation to the show that you were a part of, that kind of gave you this new platform."
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Ben described his work situation as "a grind" after The Bachelor, especially because he and Lauren essentially filmed Happily Ever After? around the clock when he wasn't at the office during the day.
Ben previously called starring on the Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? spinoff a "mistake" given it had contributed to the demise of his relationship with Lauren.
Ben acknowledged that his priorities were "misaligned at the time" during a September 2023 episode of Jason Tartick's "Trading Secrets" podcast, adding, "I was young and naive. I thought we could get through [it]. So when we broke up, Happily Ever After? stopped... I don't know why I said 'yes' to it."
Ben said when he and Lauren filmed that spinoff, they were already "struggling through stuff" as a couple.
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The "stuff" presumably included how Ben had professed his love to runner-up JoJo Fletcher on The Bachelor before proposing marriage to Lauren at the Final Rose Ceremony. Lauren even told The New York Post's Page Six in May 2022 that she had "hit rock bottom" after The Bachelor.
"We'd have really great times and then really hard times... There were many reasons why we did not work as a couple, but I think that show was going to be -- I would say impossible for us to have a healthy relationship through it and coming out of it," Ben explained of Happily Ever After?.
"Because we became working partners. We had no time. Any time that we had privately, away from the cameras, we were exhausted, or I was working."
Ben admitted he and Lauren stopped communicating and expressing their true feelings to each other. He also said they were in "survival mode" at that point.
Ben is now happily married to a woman outside of Bachelor Nation, Jessica Clarke, and Lauren is happily married to country singer Chris Lane.
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Ben and Jess met on social media and went Instagram official in January 2019. They got engaged in March 2020.
Ben and Jess purchased their first home together in Denver, CO, in December 2020, and the couple got married in a romantic Tennessee wedding in November 2021. (Ben and Jess initially planned to wed in 2020, but they pushed back their nuptials to the following year due to the coronavirus pandemic).
Ben previously revealed in June 2020 that he'd like to start a family within a few years and probably adopt at least one child with Jess.
Jess stayed by Ben's side during difficult times, such as a "breakdown" in 2021 that left Ben soul-searching and reaching out to family and friends for support.
Ben previously admitted that he "lost" himself from being so wrapped up in The Bachelor fame and struggled to navigate life once that attention from others "started to fade."
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Lauren, for her part, wed Chris in October 2019. Lauren and Chris now share two sons, Dutton and Baker.
In January, Ben claimed that he looks back fondly on his The Bachelor experience and is glad he and Lauren really tried.
"I have no emotion wrapped around my past relationship with Lauren [now]," The Bachelor alum insisted on an episode of his "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast."
Ben quipped, "You could not get me to cry [now]."
However, Ben voiced how he's a little upset that Lauren has downplayed the love she had for him in the media.
"Personally, I hear her now say that maybe love feels differently for her than it did back on her time on the show. And I go, 'I'm glad! Like, you're married with kids. I'm married [too] and, like, yes, love does feel different,'" Ben confirmed.
"I'm glad you're in love with your husband more than you liked me -- or if you liked me at all, like, I'm just glad you like him! That's cool!"
But Ben confessed Lauren "should've gone home" and quit The Bachelor if she wasn't sure about him or serious about their relationship and future together.
"That show was really real for me... I invested, personally, a lot of effort into trying to figure out if it was the path that was going to help me find my partner or not," noted Ben, who also had a brief stint on The Bachelor Winter Games in 2018.
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