The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has claimed he and Lauren Bushnell were "butting heads" and more like "work associates" than lovers shortly before calling off their wedding and breaking up.
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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.
Ben, who previously called starring on the spinoff a "mistake" given it had contributed to the demise of his relationship with Lauren, opened up about when their romance officially turned sour during the May 28 episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast, which is co-hosted by Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.
"[Former The Bachelor host] Chris Harrison flew out to Denver, and we had this moment where we sat down and he said, 'Do you guys want to have your wedding televised on national television? Obviously there's a good paycheck associated with that,'" Ben recalled.
Ben acknowledged that he and Lauren considered the offer because they were planning on getting married regardless.
"But we had already been struggling for about a month," Ben revealed.
"We were in couple's counseling and we were really trying to make it work. But we were not doing it. We were butting heads."
Ben added that he and Lauren were "already kind of not talking" at the time they had this conversation with Chris.
"We were kind of more work associates," Ben shared.
"We were living in the same house, [but] we weren't really speaking to each other off-camera because the cameras would leave at nine o'clock and we'd be exhausted. I might be having to go to work the next day. She would be doing her thing with her job."
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While filming Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?, Ben confirmed that he was still working a full-time job in software sales. Ben admitted that he needed health insurance and wasn't sure how long he'd be able to ride the wave of The Bachelor fame.
"And so she was still flying as a flight attendant a little bit, and we'd just be like, dead tired," Ben recalled.
"We wouldn't to talk to each other. We hadn't talked to each other really, truly, in weeks. And so when they asked, we both -- I remember in the car ride home, we were like, 'Are we going to do this? Because if we're going to get married, we better do it on national television. No question, right?!'"
Ben continued, "And we were both like, 'I don't think we're going to get married.' And that was one of the final episodes. We were done filming maybe a week later."
Ben said he and Lauren "tried to make it work a little bit longer" but they ultimately failed to thrive as a couple.
"And then finally, it was over," Ben concluded. "So I'd say they filmed for two months, and about a month-and-a-half into it, [Lauren and I] were [on the rocks and] kind of calling it."
Ben vented about how it was "a weird time" in his life, and, once the cameras dropped, he and Lauren agreed the very next day that their relationship was unhealthy and it was "done."
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."
Lauren, for her part, wed Chris in October 2019. Lauren and Chris now share two sons, Dutton and Baker.
In January, Ben said 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!"
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"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.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
