Ashley I., grab the waterproof mascara! Bachelor in Paradise‘s Jared Haibon revealed that he wouldn’t have signed on to season 3 of the ABC series if he knew that his good friend Ashley Iaconetti, who was head over heels in love with him, was joining the cast too.
“If I had any idea that Ashley was coming into Paradise, even if it was a small percentage, to either be with me or get over me, I would never have gone to Paradise,” Haibon, 27, said during HuffPost’s Bachelor podcast on Wednesday, September 14. “So I think that was one of the things I was most frustrated by.”
Haibon and Iaconetti, 28, met during season 2 of BIP last year. Iaconetti quickly fell for him, but he never reciprocated her feelings. (She would later reveal that they briefly hooked up.) This past season, she tried to come between Haibon and his new love interest, Caila Quinn.
“While I was in Paradise I had a lot of frustrations toward the things Ashley said and did, and discussed her approach and her unwillingness to try to move past myself until Wells [Adams] came. … It was a very troubling time for a while between Ashley and myself,” Haibon explained. “We had a lot of very difficult, long and hard conversations, but we talked through everything and I’m still friends with [her].”
Haibon and Iaconetti are now both single. Iaconetti, who cried often on the franchise, didn’t solidify a serious relationship with Adams. Haibon and Quinn, 24, meanwhile, split six weeks after they left BIP together.
“Caila and myself are still friends. Once we left the show, I think there was just so much that happened in Paradise that it was very difficult to move past,” Haibon explained this week. “Even after the show, I think we had a lot of difficult times. There were some nights where it was causing us so much stress to be together in terms of the conversations we had to have, that we didn’t have a strong enough foundation to kind of hold all the weight that was coming down upon us. And that’s what happened.”
Haibon previously appeared on Kaitlyn Bristowe‘s season 11 of The Bachelorette. Iaconetti vied for Chris Soules‘ heart on season 19 of The Bachelor, and Quinn was second runner-up during Ben Higgins‘ season 20 of The Bachelor. Quinn was initially chosen to be the season 12 Bachelorette, but the gig ultimately went to JoJo Fletcher.
