Lauren Bushnell has revealed she received comfort from an unlikely source after her breakup with Ben Higgins: JoJo Fletcher.
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"She reached out, which was really sweet," Lauren, 27, told Us Weekly of JoJo, who was Ben's runner-up on Season 20 of The Bachelor.
"Her and I talked before and I shared that we were having struggles. She texted me the day that the news or whatever broke just to check in, which I thought was really nice. We talked a little bit."
Ben memorably professed his love to both Lauren and JoJo before proposing marriage to Lauren. Lauren found the situation very "hurtful," as she felt a bit betrayed and blindsided by her former fiance.
While Lauren received Ben's final rose and an engagement ring, she worried part of his heart belonged to JoJo -- and might always belong to her.
"I wanted to move forward from it, [but] I don't think I ever really opened up about how hard that was just in terms of, like, I wanted to make that decision to get engaged one time in my life and I felt like I wasn't told everything that had happened," Lauren previously told People. "I know that JoJo was told what had happened... That was really hard."
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After The Bachelor's twentieth-season finale aired in March 2016, the couple could finally go public with their engagement. But instead of earning support from fans and the media, Lauren and Ben were bombarded with questions about Ben's love for JoJo.
"When The Bachelor aired, reliving that months later wasn't ideal either," Lauren had told People. "That's what everybody wanted to talk about... [It was] hard [to] continually talk about it over and over again when you're trying to start a life with someone."
Once The Bachelor edition wrapped on television, JoJo went on to star on The Bachelorette, so naturally talk of her strong relationship with Ben didn't subside for weeks.
JoJo vented about how much she loved Ben and how he had hurt her, and all the while, Lauren and Ben were trying to make their romance work in Denver, CO, a location totally foreign to the aspiring model and former flight attendant from Los Angeles, CA.
"I did carry some resentment toward him, not with JoJo," Lauren told Us in October 2016. "I had such a hard time trying to understand and put myself in his shoes, and finally was like, 'I will never understand. I will never be the Bachelor.'"
JoJo's history with Ben was finally put to rest when Jordan Rodgers proposed to the Dallas beauty at the end of her The Bachelorette season. (And they are currently still together).
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But Lauren and Ben's relationship continued to go downhill after that. Their communication broke down as they filmed their Freeform spinoff Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?, and Ben recently explained the joy in their relationship just faded over time.
The pair publicly announced their split in May after one year of dating through a joint media statement.
Lauren isn't looking to get into another romance any time soon, but she said when it happens, she fully intends to take things slowly -- much unlike her The Bachelor journey.
As for a future stint on Bachelor in Paradise perhaps, Lauren told Us on Wednesday, "I don't know how I'll feel in a year or six months from now, but right now, today, I'm not ready for that. Part of the last chapter of my life was so reality TV focused and it stressed me out. I can't think like that because I'm just trying to move forward and kind of close that chapter, if you will."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski