Putting his needs first. Bachelor Nation’s Jared Haibon defended his decision not to invite “Help! I Suck at Dating” podcast cohost Vanessa Grimaldi to his and fiancée Ashley Iaconetti’s upcoming wedding.
“Vanessa and I talked about it. And I think a lot of people just misunderstood and I think it was just a little bit of a trigger for me, because it’s dealing with something that’s very personal,” Haibon, 30, told Us Weekly exclusively at the iHeartRadio Wango Tango Podcast Suite sponsored by SugarBearHair on Saturday, June 1. “If there’s any point in my life to be selfish, I think I’m allowed to be selfish about the wedding.”
The Rhode Island native added that the drama surrounding the situation “bothers” him because it also affects the couple’s families. “It’s about Ashley and I, but also, our parents are very involved in this wedding and I just hated that there was even any kind of negative [focus] on it,” he confessed. “I think that bothered me because, you know, Ashley and I don’t mind [the publicity] because we’ve gone through it, but, like, my parents seeing articles … it’s, like, it’s all supposed to be positive.”
Haibon alluded during an April episode of his podcast that Grimaldi, 31, will not be invited to his and Iaconetti’s August 2019 nuptials. The special education teacher later admitted that she was “sad” about the decision, which she thought was made because her ex-fiancé, Nick Viall, will serve as a groomsman in the ceremony.
“I totally get it … I understand and … I don’t want to make an ass of myself by making an assumption, but I assume it’s because of a particular person,” she told Haibon and cohost Dean Unglert. “I get that, and like I said, I’m not mad, I’m not anything, I’m mostly just sad.”
However, Viall shut down his ex’s claim that he is the reason why she did not get an invite to the upcoming event. “Ashley and Jared’s wedding is Ashley and Jared days,” he commented via Instagram in April. “Looking forward to enjoying the day with them and everyone they want to celebrate it with.”
Iaconetti, 31, and Haibon met during season 2 of Bachelor in Paradise and were friends for several years before they officially started dating in March 2018. The former restaurant manager proposed to the journalist while they were filming the fifth season of the reality spinoff in June 2018.
Viall, 38, and Grimaldi, meanwhile, got engaged on the season 21 finale of The Bachelor in March 2017, but split five months later.
With reporting by Valerie Nome
