The Ultimatum’s Jessica Grace Booker shut down assumptions that her former fiancé, Edris Khalieque, proposed for the wrong reasons.
“For me, one of the things that would have helped would be to have shown Edris in a better light,” Jessica Grace exclusively told Us on Tuesday, July 21, about how her relationship with Edris came off throughout season 4.
Jessica Grace specifically addressed how Edris proposed moments before they participated in the dating experiment, saying, “I think that people think that the proposal itself was kind of just like a shut up ring — or done out of jealousy. Like, ‘Why would she choose him? He’s such a stoner.’”
The reality star shut down certain assumptions about the state of the pair’s relationship.
“I run a strict program, I’m sober myself, I’m not going to get married to someone who smokes weed in our house,” Jessica Grace noted. “I just wish there was a truer representation of him — the man that I know and I love and that I wanted to get married to.”
After seeing what made the final cut of the show, Jessica Grace regretted how she “dragged” Edris into the experience. She also offered an update on where the pair stand now after leaving season 4 early amid their engagement.
“Edris and I came home and we really wanted to stay involved and connected to the other couples while working on our own issues,” she recalled. “We didn’t see each other for dating week, so we didn’t really get to address anything. We knew we just had work to do, and so, we went through couples counseling.”
Jessica Grace and Edris were ultimately not able to make it work.
“It just came to a point where we realized we were doing each other more harm than good because of the pain that was there. Not being able to communicate the pain in each other’s language, it just got to where we were just hurting each other,” she told Us. “As much as I think either one of us wanted to work, we did break up. That’s been really hard.”
The Ultimatum follows real-life couples who enter “trial” marriages with a new partner before deciding whether they’re ready to get engaged to their original connection.
“That’s not the outcome that I wanted. I do wonder how much the unorthodox experience that we went through — even though it was truncated — contributed to some of that,” Jessica Grace shared with Us while reflecting on her split. “I think ultimately when two people are in pain and they can’t heal from each other in the relationship, you just have to call it. That was really hard for me.”
She continued: “The first [time] I consider a more informal breakup was, like, a couple months after filming. Then we got back to a point where we said that we wanted to try and work on things. Then we had a much more formal breakup in September, so we didn’t speak. Seeing him at the reunion was the first time that I had seen him and spoken to him.”
The Ultimatum is streaming on Netflix.
