Shut down! Carly Waddell slammed speculation about the timeline of her separation from Evan Bass after the Bachelorette alum’s ex-wife, Marie Bass, alleged they split nearly two years before it was announced.
On Sunday, January 3, the former Bachelor star, 35, posted a YouTube video giving fans a tour of her home while she addressed the rumors.
“There’s been weird stuff going on about people asking me when we separated,” Waddell said in the video, not naming Marie. “We separated the day after Thanksgiving. We’ve been going to therapy for years.”
The Texas native then went into further detail about their split, revealing that they’d been having issues for some time. Waddell claimed the decision, ultimately, was his.
“We tried for a really long time to make it work. We went to therapy,” she shared. “We focused a lot more on the kids than we focused on ourselves and, ultimately, I think that was our biggest downfall. … If you don’t have a foundation for yourself, then you crumble.”
Waddell continued, “I always told him, if he wanted out it was his call because I just am not a person that would ever be out. … What are you gonna do? If somebody doesn’t wanna be with you, they don’t wanna be with you and you sage.”
She told her side of the story while seated in the very room where she learned Evan, 38, wanted to end the marriage after three years.
“He was sitting right where I’m sitting,” she said, holding a bundle of sage and a lighter. “I found this house and Evan told me to buy this house and then he told me he didn’t want to live in it. So, here we are.”
Marie made her bombshell claims during an appearance on the “Reality Steve” podcast on Thursday, December 31. She alleged Evan and Waddell have lived apart since early 2019.
“I want to say it was February of ’19 that she left and moved to Pegram, [Tennessee],” Marie told the Bachelor Nation blogger. “She left him when she wasn’t even showing with [son] Charlie yet.”
Waddell shared many details about her split from Evan, but had not revealed the reason until Sunday. On December 27, she posted a Christmas vlog in which she cried while she revealed how she’s adjusting to their breakup.
“Christmas is over. This is the part I was looking forward to the least because Evan came and got the kids and they’re gonna be so happy and they’re gonna have so much fun, but Charlie has never slept at anybody else’s house before. It’s not even like I’m worried about him, it’s just hard being away from him,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
The reality star added, “I know this is the new normal but it just doesn’t feel normal. It feels awful.”
She previously got candid with Instagram followers about how she was feeling on Christmas Day.
“Merry Christmas,” she captioned a December 25 Instagram post. “Christmas day isn’t what I had expected this year. The three of us. The new normal. Which feels incredibly abnormal, and actually very sad. A lot of you kind people have asked if I’m ok. And I want to say I am, but I’m not. I will be though.”
The estranged couple met on season 3 of Bachelor in Paradise and married in 2017. They have two children, Bella, 2, and Charlie, 13 months, and Carly is a stepmom to Evan’s three sons, Ensley, Liam and Nathan, from his marriage to Marie.
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