Cara Santana was “blindsided” by photos of her ex- fiancé, Jesse Metcalfe, cuddling up to multiple women, Us Weekly can exclusively confirm.
“Jesse has been staying in a hotel and was going back and forth to the house he has with Cara,” an insider tells Us. “He had not moved out. They had still been having conversations. Cara posted a pic on her IG stories with her ring on yesterday. She had no idea about the other women. She thought Jesse needed time to deal with things he was going through. He’s leaving soon to make a movie with Bruce Willis and Lala Kent.”
The source added that the Salem alum “was 100 percent blindsided when the photos surfaced” and that the pair “weren’t officially broken up” at the time.
Metcalfe, 41, was spotted getting cozy with multiple women in Los Angeles in photos obtained by the Daily Mail on Wednesday, January 22. The John Tucker Must Die star was photographed holding hands and smiling with model Livia Pillmann at the restaurant Gracias Madre in West Hollywood. Later that day, he was seen hugging a mystery blonde woman at the Attic bar in Sherman Oaks, California.
Us broke the news on Wednesday that the Desperate Housewives alum and Santana, 35, had broken up after 13 years together, after a second source claimed that the date of their split was on January 4. “They’ve split and are not together,” the source said. “He did not cheat on her.”
The insider added that the former couple are “not even living together.”
But Olivia Culpo took to Instagram, accusing Metcalfe of cheating on her “best friend” Santana by posting a meme of Regina George from Mean Girls which read, “Don’t cheat … Nobody likes a cheater.” She followed up that post with a picture of Kevin McAllister from Home Alone holding up a BB gun. “When someone upsets my best friend,” the 2012 Miss USA Winner captioned the post and tagged Santana.
A rep for Santana told Us on Wednesday: “Cara is not going to comment and asks that everyone please respect her privacy at this time.”
The actor referred to Santana as his “fiancée” during an appearance on Hallmark’s Home & Family, which shot on January 8 and aired on January 9 the next day. While on the show, he recounted his and Santana’s family trip to Belgium over Christmas.
He also revealed that their wedding plans had been put on hold indefinitely during an interview with Hallmark Channel’s ”Bubbly Sesh” podcast, which was recorded on January 15. However, the California native said the duo planned to return to wedding planning “very soon.”
“We really kinda have it on hold right now,” Metcalfe said in the interview. “We were doing it not long after we got engaged and it just kinda lost momentum. I’m sure it will pick up momentum again very soon. We just have both been very busy with work.”
He added that his most romantic moment was when he proposed to Santana. Metcalfe popped the question to the actress with a 5.5-carat emerald-cut diamond onboard a sailboat on the Hudson River in New York City in August 2016.
Although the couple have been rocky this month, they attended The Art of Elysium’s 13th annual celebration together on January 4. Santana told Us that making their careers a priority was the secret to the “longevity in their relationship.”
“We both have such fulfilling professional lives and we’re both so ambitious and I’m really focused,” she explained. “So, I think that’s something that we really respect in one another and that creates balance, because you’re separate and then you really value the time that you have together. I think it’s all part and parcel of, like, what makes us work.”
