Ben Higgins’ heart is heavy over fellow Bachelor alums Kaitlyn Bristowe and Jason Tartick’s recent split.
“This is a healthy split [but] It’s a sad split,” Higgins, 34, said to cohost Ashley Iaconetti on the Monday, August 7, episode of the “The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous” podcast. “Because you and I have been around them quite a bit and they did seem really good for each other. And we do see them off-camera and away from the public and it did feel like the two of them could work. Maybe that’s why it’s such a sad thing for both of them. Because I’m sure there were many times they were like, ‘Wow this is the most beautiful thing ever.’ But obviously, you know, they weren’t compatible.”
Higgins, for his part, noted on Monday that “there was obviously something” that came between Bristowe and Tartick for them to call it quits for good, but the twosome also clearly still have love for each other.
“I think it’s telling for me that this was a healthy split — if that even is a thing — because of the pictures they both posted of each other,” the season 20 Bachelor explained of the duo’s joint breakup post. “Looking back on the memories and the time together and doing it with admiration. That typically doesn’t happen. If it wasn’t [amicable], we’d see some joint statement that was like, ‘Hey, we need privacy and we just aren’t right for each other’ and that’s where it would end.”
Higgins added that Bristowe, 38 — a longtime pal of his — is “someone we saw go through the Bachelorette process” and is now a person who “wants to be mother, a wife and have a companion.” Higgins added that Tartick is also “very excited for that stage of life as well.”
“I think when I watched and saw [their breakup] that was one of the saddest parts to me,” he continued. “They’re not going to be able to do that together and I think they both believed [they could do] that side by side.”
Bristowe and Tartick, 34, began dating in 2019 after the season 11 Bachelorette split from her final rose recipient, Shawn Booth. Two years later, in May 2021, Tartick popped the question.
Last month, however, fans began to wonder if there was trouble in paradise when Bristowe was spotted without her engagement ring — or fiancé — while on vacation.
The twosome later confirmed they had ended their engagement in a joint statement on Sunday, August 6. “We feel grateful to be ending our engagement with love and respect for each other,” they wrote in part. “It’s heartbreaking and sad to say goodbye, but our care and admiration for one another will never die.”
During his podcast episode, Higgins noted that Bristowe and Tartick moving on after so many years together — especially when living in the spotlight — is bound to be a “hard” feat for the former couple, but he is “rooting” for them both to find happiness.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bristowe opened up about the difficulties of going through a breakup while in the public eye during an episode of her “Off the Vine” podcast.
“I’m going through a breakup with someone I was engaged to. Now, we both are public figures, we both came from the same show, we have all these followers who we’ve let in,” she said. “And we’ve invited them into our lives and our relationship and our home. And what we’re doing morning, afternoon, night — it’s become part of, like, business.”
Tartick, for his part, struggled to get through the Monday, August 7, episode introduction of his “Trading Secrets” podcast.
“I’m going to make this one a little bit shorter today,” he said of the intro package. “This is my second attempt at this. [My] first attempt … it did not go well, I’ll tell you that much,” he shared, joking that “maybe at some point” fans would hear his first round of recording the intro post-split.
