The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has responded to Kaitlyn Bristowe's admission she had slept with three guys on her The Bachelorette season and revealed how the disclosure affected his wife Jessica Clarke.
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Before Ben starred on The Bachelor's 20th season, he competed for Kaitlyn's heart on The Bachelorette's eleventh season in 2015 and finished in third place after Kaitlyn's round of overnight Fantasy Suite dates with three guys, including Nick Viall and Shawn Booth.
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Kaitlyn revealed during an April episode of the "Guys We F***d" podcast that she had sex with three men during her season. Given she's confirmed having slept with both Nick and Shawn, fans assume her third sexual partner was Ben in the Fantasy Suite.
When asked how those conversations go with his wife during a recent episode of the "Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation" podcast, Ben replied, "I don't know if Jess ever -- I'm sure she saw something or somebody sent her something, I'm sure."
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"And she, at this point, I think, probably -- I'm assuming a lot here. I'm assuming Jess saw it and she probably didn't love it. It probably didn't make her feel great."
Ben continued, "She probably closed that article up and said, 'There isn't a reason for me to bring this to Ben because I know where we're at, I know what we're building, I know how committed he is to me, and there isn't anything healthy that would come from me bringing this up to him.'"
Ben had already lost his virginity prior to appearing on Kaitlyn's The Bachelorette season, but Jessica waited to have sex for the very first time until marriage.
Jessica and Ben got engaged in early 2020 but didn't tie the knot until November 2021 due to a postponed wedding amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"If she wants me to explain myself to her," Ben said of Jessica, "I can and I gladly will."
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"I'm not going to lie or hide anything. It's hard to do because, well, it's televised," he joked. "But also, I think it's one of the coolest parts [of our relationship]. In the past, I often had a lot of insecurity when it came to somebody having eyes for somebody else when you're dating them, right?"
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Ben explained that in past relationships, he always had an underlying feeling of, "I need to control or protect," which he admitted was "a very unhealthy attitude towards a relationship."
"It's not good of me to feel that way. But I just always had to fight that," Ben acknowledged.
"But with Jessica, one of the main reasons why I knew that we were going to be awesome together is, like, there is no jealousy. There is no fear in my heart of stepping out and there is no fear in my heart of her stepping out."
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Ben told the podcast's co-hosts Mike Johnson and Bryan Abasolo that Jessica "knows enough about my past to know I've done things in my life that maybe she hasn't done."
But Ben confirmed that's not who he and Jessica are now.
"And so yeah, I think it's weird. One of the hardest things -- in the past, Kaitlyn reached out to me after that came out and she said, 'That wasn't me intention,' and I said, 'I know that, Kaitlyn.' I know Kaitlyn's intentions were not to bring up something," Ben said.
"She's engaged, like, that can't be fun for them either."
Kaitlyn is currently engaged to The Bachelorette alum Jason Tartick and they're planning a wedding for Fall 2022 or early 2023.
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"I'm sure Jason's not sitting at home, like, 'Hey, I loved it, to read about this!' I listened to the interview and it was a very passing statement," Ben shared.
"It was just like, 'Hey, this was my experience.' I don't think she meant anything by it and it got blown up, right?"
But Ben admitted it was hard for Jessica when re-runs of his The Bachelor season aired in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. He and Jessica "very quickly turned it off" and determined it wasn't healthy for them to watch Season 20.
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"That was harder than reading an article, I think, seeing it," Ben said.
"It's not fun, and honestly, we try to protect ourselves the best we can from that, because I don't want to see it and she doesn't want to see it, and so why would we watch it -- or why would be read about it or talk about it, unless it's really aching at one of our souls? There's no reason to bring it up."
Ben got engaged to Lauren Bushnell during his The Bachelor season finale in 2016, and then the pair starred on a spinoff, Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?, which aired on Freeform and featured them planning a wedding.
Ben and Lauren called off their engagement and split in May 2017, and then Ben looked for love on The Bachelor: Winter Games in 2018 but realized he wasn't quite ready to date again yet.
Ben began dating Jessica in December 2018 and the couple went Instagram official in January 2019.
They continued to make a long-distance relationship work, with Ben being in Denver most of the time and Jessica living in Nashville, where she attended esthetics school.
After Ben proposed marriage to Jessica in early 2020, they purchased their first home together in Denver in December of that year.
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Ben and Jessica had to postpone their initial 2020 wedding due to the coronavirus pandemic, but they ended up getting married in a "simple and beautiful" wedding ceremony at The Estate in Cherokee Dock near Nashville in November 2021.
Ben has said he and Jessica are now looking to expand their family; however, they are in no rush to have children and decided to start with a dog named Waylon.
Jessica has stayed by Ben's side even during the most difficult times, such as a "breakdown" in Summer 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 fame and struggled to navigate life once that attention from The Bachelor "started to fade."
For Lauren's part, the Season 20 The Bachelor alum is married with one child to country singer Chris Lane.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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