Michelle Young Hints Nayte Olukoya Split Was a Blindside, Addresses $200K Down Payment Gift

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Michelle Young Hints Nayte Olukoya Split Was a Blindside, Addresses $200K Down Payment Gift

Answering those burning questions — kind of. Michelle Young is still working through her split from Nayte Olukoya, giving her first interview less than one month after calling off her engagement. When asked by Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti how she’s coping, the 29-year-old Minnesota native said on the “Almost Famous” podcast that she has “good days” and “bad days” as she navigates the breakup, which happened the same month she announced she wouldn’t return to teaching in September. “It’s been quite a transition, I would say just because this year, I decided to step away from the classroom this following school year just because I've been so burned out and just really wanting to, you know, get out of that survival mode,” Young said on Tuesday, July 5. “I kind of feel like life has taken this thing as like, ‘OK, challenge accepted … [now] deal with a breakup.’ It's definitely not something that I planned to have to work through this summer. But I definitely have the understanding that, like, sometimes we have to work through things that we did not plan for or that were not in our life plans.” The reality star added that she’s “leaning on my friends [and] family for support” at this time. Young and Olukoya, who got engaged during the December 2021 finale of The Bachelorette, originally planned to move to her native Minnesota. However, they ended things before he took the leap. [jwplayer Qt5wDpQz-zhNYySv2] “Nayte and I are very independent people. But at that same time, I really — I, personally — want to work toward different things, right? We're in two different places. He's in Austin, I'm in Minnesota, and long-distance is difficult,” she said after Iaconetti asked whether her decision to stop teaching was because she wanted to spend more time with her then-fiancé. “Having this summer off, and being able to step away from teaching, that would have happened, regardless of a relationship, regardless of influencing — whatever you want to call it — just because I really needed to take a breath out of teaching. But would that have resulted in spending more time with Nayte? Yeah.” Young and Olukoya announced their decision to end their relationship in respective statements on June 17. “When we both started this journey, we were looking for our soulmates. Our forever. Our best friends,” he wrote via Instagram Stories at the time. “However, as we grow and learn, we also really that sometimes somebody that you hold dear to your heart isn’t somebody you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with.” Olukoya has since denied allegations of cheating, writing via the social media app on June 26: “Not every breakup needs to have someone to blame. Yes, many of you seem to paint me as a red flag/ f—k boy … But I’m actually a decent guy, and I only want to continue getting better. As we should all want for ourselves.” Scroll through for more from Young on “Almost Famous”:

Credit: CraSH/ImageSPACE/Shutterstock

Michelle Young Hints Nayte Olukoya Split Was a Blindside, Addresses $200K Down Payment Gift

Answering those burning questions — kind of. Michelle Young is still working through her split from Nayte Olukoya, giving her first interview less than one month after calling off her engagement. When asked by Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti how she’s coping, the 29-year-old Minnesota native said on the “Almost Famous” podcast that she has “good days” and “bad days” as she navigates the breakup, which happened the same month she announced she wouldn’t return to teaching in September. “It’s been quite a transition, I would say just because this year, I decided to step away from the classroom this following school year just because I've been so burned out and just really wanting to, you know, get out of that survival mode,” Young said on Tuesday, July 5. “I kind of feel like life has taken this thing as like, ‘OK, challenge accepted … [now] deal with a breakup.’ It's definitely not something that I planned to have to work through this summer. But I definitely have the understanding that, like, sometimes we have to work through things that we did not plan for or that were not in our life plans.” The reality star added that she’s “leaning on my friends [and] family for support” at this time. Young and Olukoya, who got engaged during the December 2021 finale of The Bachelorette, originally planned to move to her native Minnesota. However, they ended things before he took the leap. [jwplayer Qt5wDpQz-zhNYySv2] “Nayte and I are very independent people. But at that same time, I really — I, personally — want to work toward different things, right? We're in two different places. He's in Austin, I'm in Minnesota, and long-distance is difficult,” she said after Iaconetti asked whether her decision to stop teaching was because she wanted to spend more time with her then-fiancé. “Having this summer off, and being able to step away from teaching, that would have happened, regardless of a relationship, regardless of influencing — whatever you want to call it — just because I really needed to take a breath out of teaching. But would that have resulted in spending more time with Nayte? Yeah.” Young and Olukoya announced their decision to end their relationship in respective statements on June 17. “When we both started this journey, we were looking for our soulmates. Our forever. Our best friends,” he wrote via Instagram Stories at the time. “However, as we grow and learn, we also really that sometimes somebody that you hold dear to your heart isn’t somebody you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with.” Olukoya has since denied allegations of cheating, writing via the social media app on June 26: “Not every breakup needs to have someone to blame. Yes, many of you seem to paint me as a red flag/ f—k boy … But I’m actually a decent guy, and I only want to continue getting better. As we should all want for ourselves.” Scroll through for more from Young on “Almost Famous”:

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Was Michelle Blindsided by Her Split From Nayte?

“I will say this is not something that I foresaw and I'll leave it there,” she said.

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The Video of Michelle Without Her Ring

Less than three weeks before they announced their split, Young refuted breakup rumors that were based on her being seen without her ring.

“Everyone's like, ‘We should have known! She faked it, this and that.’ And, like, I'm up here sitting there like, ‘S—t, this is why I don't ever respond to the internet because that did not age well,’” she said. “I really, truly believe in reflecting how you feel and I think that's kind of why I've stepped away from social media because I've had to take this time to kind of work on myself and find that inner peace. I'm not good with posting if things aren't OK."

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What Happened to Michelle and Nayte's House Down Payment After Split?

During the season 18 finale, ABC gave the couple $200,000 to put toward buying their first house together.

“That was gifted to both of us, and I think that's something that is going to be decided how that's going to be utilized, going forward,” Young said. “For me, personally, [I] haven't officially decided but I kind of have started putting some different things in place to give back, you know, to build an organization or just promote the change that I've been talking about and I think that'd be something that I'd feel really good about.”

Young added that she’s been “crying on the phone with one of the producers,” asking whether she can “give the money to somebody else.”

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The Time to Heal

“Breakups suck. Breakups are awful,” Young said. “They hurt, right? And I think what's so difficult is that it sometimes feels like it's not in your control. You wake up and you some days you just feel like, ‘OK, I just have to have time pass … give it time,’ but like, you can't always speed up that time. You can’t always speed up healing, you can put in the work, but you can't always speed it up. But it is this situation where I'm like, ‘This is not how the story ends for me.’ Where I'm at right now emotionally, mentally, like, how my heart feels — this is not how the story ends and I deserve to really make it to that point where I get those things.”

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Getting Support

“Becca [Kufrin] and other Bachelorettes reaching out that kind of have been through situations like this — I feel like I've been able to reach out to different people depending on what I needed,” she said. “Becca has been through a public relationship ending, you know, Rachel Lindsay, and Tayshia [Adams] and Kaitlyn [Bristowe], have all been through this, and they're able to offer certain advice. And then, I have some really close friends who are also able to really know who I am, and they just get me. They get what hurts, they get my responses to certain things, and they're able to sit there and kind of help me sort through things. And so it's been hard. It's been very emotional, and there's been a lot of waves of things, but to have family and friends who go on those waves with you and are willing to take in those waves with you has been just incredible.”