Chris Soules opened up about the 2017 car crash that killed a fellow farmer, saying he felt like he had “nothing left to live for.”
The Bachelor alum, 38, spoke to Bachelor Nation’s Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti about the aftermath of the Aurora, Iowa, accident that happened when his truck rear-ended a tractor being driven by Kenneth Mosher. The 66-year-old died from his injuries and Soules was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
“There was a period after the accident that I didn’t want to get out of bed,” the season 19 Bachelor star told the pair on the Saturday, December 21, episode of their “Almost Famous” podcast. “There was no hope left in life for me. I was severely, severely depressed and scared. There was nothing left to live for.”
“But you took one day at a time,” he continued. “Luckily, I have a family that is super supportive and friends that gave everything they could to keep my head in a relatively good space. I’m not going to lie, there was moments you didn’t think it was worth waking up. The worst things you ever could possibly think, I’ve thought.”
Soules agreed to a two-year suspended sentence in August and is currently serving two years of probation.
He told Higgins and Iaconetti that the first six months after the April 2017 accident were “probably one of the lowest points” of his life.
“If there’s anyone that’s been in a fatal car accident that wishes they were not the one that died as a result of it, I think they’re a liar. It would be a lot easier,” he said. “I like to think in my heart I’m a good person and did all the right things. A lot of people were quick to judge me and said horrible things that just weren’t true and made a bad situation a lot worse for everyone.”
He spoke slowly as he tried to find the words to describe the emotional turmoil he’s been through.
“It’s something that I’ll never forget and I still struggle to move on from. It’s something I’ll think about forever. Every day. And will think about forever. I can’t say enough how much I could take that evening back. I think both parties involved wish that evening hadn’t occurred,” he continued. “But life is about, not the tragedies that you’ve been through, it’s about what you do afterwards and how you move forward. All you can do is pray, work hard and focus on being a better person. That’s been my focus in the past two years and I will continue to do that and appreciate the little things in life and try to get better.”
Soules, who competed for Andi Dorfman’s heart in season 10 of The Bachelorette, looked back at his legal battle over the past two years that saw him initially charged with a Class D felony and facing up to five years in prison before the prosecutor amended the charge down to a misdemeanor.
“It’s hard to actually paint a true picture. The will to really get out of bed, you just feel like there’s no reason to be around. You are stuck in limbo with constant legal interactions, the thoughts of the accident that never go away, you have everything hanging over your head,” he added. “It felt like a million pounds on my shoulders, just not being able to focus on anything and really not feeling like you have any motivation to be anybody or do anything. Just constant pain in your heart and your head. Not being a good decent person to be around, angry at myself, feeling that I let everyone in my life down and caused a lot of pain for a lot of people.”
“It’s been a tragedy,” the Dancing With the Stars alum said. “A tragedy that two families were caught up in. An unavoidable situation that words can’t really describe how challenging it has been I’m sure for both my family and the other people involved. The lows have been really low but we’ve stuck together as a family and both families are having an opportunity to heal as much as humanly possible from something that you really can’t 100 percent heal from.”
“Hopefully as time goes on there’ll be closure between myself and the Mosher family,” Soules said. “I feel that that day will come.”
