Bachelor Nation alum Carly Waddell is off the market — but she’s trying to keep her new man “private” for as long as possible.
“I’m definitely seeing one human,” Waddell, 38, revealed on “The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast” late last month, noting that she’s been with her new boyfriend for “four months.”
“He’s older than me,” Waddell teased, later sharing that he’s a small business owner. “He’s literally everything I’ve ever wanted in a human.”
Waddell shares two kids, Bella, 5, and Charlie, 3, with ex-husband Evan Bass. She told the podcast cohosts that that her boyfriend has already met her children.
“It’s so great to have him around when craziness is happening in my life,” she added of her “supportive” partner. “He’s really great.”
As for how they met? Waddell followed the “handsome” Nashville resident on Instagram after seeing him on a local TV show. They kept “liking” each other’s pictures before Waddell broke the ice.
“I just slid into his DMs and said, ‘Lol are we just going to keep liking each other’s stuff?’” Waddell recalled during the podcast episode. Her now-boyfriend replied, calling himself “old school” and asking to talk on the phone.
“Our first date … I called my mom and was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen with this man but I will measure up every first date to what that was.’ It was just unbelievable,” Waddell added.
Waddell made her Bachelor Nation debut during Chris Soules’ season of The Bachelor. She found love with Bass on Bachelor in Paradise season 3. They got married in 2017 and split in 2020.
It’s apparent that Waddell has moved on from her ex-husband, but he’s not out of her life completely. She and Bass still have a “really easy” coparenting relationship as they continue to raise their kids together.
“He’s done this before, you know what I mean? He has three older kids. The oldest one is now, like, 21 [or] 22. And the middle one’s going off to college. His kids are older, he’s raised ’em since they were babies. He knows what he is doing,” Waddell told Us Weekly exclusively in April. “They go over there every other weekend. And I remember at first I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, like, what are they doing over there?’ But now I’m just like, ‘He’s got it.’ If there’s ever a problem, like, a sickness or something, we talk about it and we work it out. But it’s not a problem.”
Waddell also told Us that she “would do everything exactly the same” when reflecting on her marriage.
“I really would,” she added. “I mean, it was hard and it sucked so bad, but it was all the right choices in the long run.”
