On Tuesday, the Bachelor/Bachelorette Nation was rocked by absolutely devastating news. Seriously, if you need a tissue to wipe up your tears, I have plenty on hand. Apparently, Britt Nilsson and Brady Toops have broken up after a little less than six months of dating, because love is a lie. Not only do we have to deal with the breakups of Bachelors and Bachelorettes themselves, but now not even the off-brand couples who meet through the show's process can make it work? What kind of cruel world is this?
Neither Britt nor Brady was ever the star of their own season of the franchise, so their names might not be familiar to you, but just to catch you up — they met during the first episode of The Bachelorette Season 10, which is still airing. At that point, Britt was still in the running to be the Bachelorette, against Kaitlyn, who eventually won the honor after being chosen by the majority of the men. But, even though Nilsson didn't win, some of the men had, of course, voted for her, and Brady was one of them. In fact, the Nashville-based musician felt so strongly about her that he voluntarily left the show to go pursue Britt instead of phoning it in with Kaitlyn. And, luckily for him, Britt was into it, so the two embarked on a relationship that apparently consisted mainly of skipping down the beach hand in hand and marveling that they'd found each other.
Every week, spliced in among Kaitlyn seemingly-endless dramas, The Bachelorette would check in with them as a sort of B-story, watching their love develop at a much faster pace, given that they only had each other to focus on instead of a field of 25 contestants. And, where we've left them in the episodes that are currently airing, the two still seem to be doing very well. But, of course, that footage was filmed months ago, and multiple sources are now claiming that the pair has broken up. Whomp whomp. Once the Bachelorette episode where they declared themselves boyfriend and girlfriend had aired, Britt and Brady went public with their relationship, posting photos on Instagram showing them happy together. But sadly, it's now clear that those were from a simpler time, as the posts abruptly cut out about a month ago. The following photo is the last of the two of them together, and is from four weeks ago:
Obviously we haven't gotten an official comment from ABC, or Britt or Brady themselves, so we don't have a solid reason for the breakup, but we can learn a lot from looking at their time on camera together. The last we saw was Brady leaving Los Angeles, where Britt lives, to go home to Nashville, and officially try to make their relationship work long-distance, which can be the kiss of death with something so new. As Britt said at the time, "The next stage will really be the test, so we'll see. Fingers crossed."
Annnnnd fingers uncrossed. So sorry. I'm no expert, but my suspicion was that the pressure of living in two different states was too much for them. After all, that's typically the reason that Bachelor and Bachelorette couples break up as well; going from seeing each other every day to living thousands of miles apart is a huge deal, and hard to prepare for. So, until we get the official word from someone more closely involved in this situation, that's my best guess for what ultimately pulled these two apart — secondary plot lines to The Bachelorette just aren't built to withstand the pressure of dating long-distance.
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Image: ABC
