Are Jake & Rae Still Together After The Ultimatum? They Chose To “Backtrack”

​​Going into Netflix’s new reality dating show The Ultimatum, April Marie gave her boyfriend of two years, Jake Cunningham, a direct order: “Marry me, or I’m moving the hell on.” The longer the couple stayed in the experiment, however, the less likely it seemed that April was going to get what she wanted. Jake immediately hit it off with Rae Williams — who came on the show after giving her own boyfriend, Zay, an ultimatum — and the two continued to grow closer with each passing day. “Rae literally hits every single thing I need in a girl, plus more,” Jake said after their first chat.

Jake and Rae quickly discovered that they have a lot in common, including that they’re both mixed race, eventually want two kids, grew up as only children, and are extremely close to their Italian American mothers. “Everything that you were saying, I was like, ‘Oh, they found my twin,’” Rae told Jake, who replied that she’s the “girl version” of him. So it came as little surprise when they chose each other for their first three-week trial marriage.

“Right after our first date, we literally bonded on every level,” Jake told Rae at the cast selection dinner. “Every other time we went to the next date, you were the one I actually looked forward to getting to know and spending more time with. At the end of the day, I could see a future with you.”

After a week of living together, Jake and Rae were loving the experience, noting that they shared the same commitment to cleanliness, a similar sleep schedule, and of course, sexual chemistry. Even Rae’s dad — who has “never really liked anybody” that she’s dated in the past — gave Jake his stamp of approval. Jake’s mom, on the other hand, had her doubts, privately telling her son that “there are tons of people out there like Rae” and not exactly hiding her preference for April.

Jake later told Rae he wished that his three weeks with her “never had to end,” though he recognized that Zay still loved her and felt guilty standing in the way of their relationship. “I would love for us to go off to the sunset,” the Marine Corps vet said. “I’ve gotten to know everything about you deeper and deeper and deeper. And living with you has shown me what I really do need in a relationship and what I do deserve. ... I might feel bad stealing you from somebody, but at the end of the day, the person that I would want to really leave with is you.”

Before the pair could get to that point, Jake and Rae still had to move in with their respective original partners for three weeks. And needless to say, they each encountered some serious roadblocks. Jake and April continued to argue, particularly after she went through his phone and found videos of Rae shaking her butt. Meanwhile, Jake learned that April had been “texting a lot of guys that she found out partying at the club,” accusing her of playing “jealous little tricks.” At one point, April also thought she was pregnant, though she later revealed she’d gotten her period.

Meanwhile, Rae couldn’t give Zay reassurance that she wanted to be with him, so he decided he was “ready to get f*cked up and just forget all this even happened.” He left their apartment, and, according to Rae, was “being really sketchy.” She said he stopped sharing his iPhone location with her, wouldn’t respond to her calls and texts, and then came home shortly after 8 a.m., “drunk, smelling like the club, [and] smelling like perfume.” At that point, she said, she told him she didn’t want to be with him anymore, and then later admitted she was so “pissed” she “literally punched him.”

After Rae broke up with Zay, she said she wouldn’t have done anything differently on the show, surmising that everything had turned out how it was supposed to. She also saw Jake as an even more viable option to choose in the end, now that she was single. Once Jake and April decided to split in the finale, the possibility for a post-show relationship seemed more viable than ever. Even so, during their ultimatum day conversation, Jake told April, “Me and Rae are not running off together. We’re not doing that.”

After Rae arrived, however, Jake had a “proposal” of sorts for her. Explaining that he hoped to “one day” give her everything she deserves, in the meantime he offered her two tickets to travel “anywhere in the world” together. That trip never happened, though, as they both “made a conscious choice to kind of backtrack,” Rae explained during the reunion episode. “I think that we kind of came to a consensus that everybody needed more time to heal,” she added.

Instead, for about five months after filming wrapped, Jake and April continued working on their relationship, on and off. Though April was still staying with him, she eventually met an Austin-based real estate broker, whom she’s now seriously dating. Jake, for his part, is “still trying to figure things out,” and, as of March 2022, he was living in Austin solo.

Meanwhile, Zay and Rae also “did kind of try to fix things,” and, despite rekindling their sexual relationship, “ultimately that didn’t work out,” she revealed on the reunion. “Since Zay and I split up, I’ve been with one person,” Rae added. “She’s amazing, and I had a really good connection with her. But we kind of kept it casual, and I’m kind of figuring out myself and my sexuality because I was very uncomfortable with being bi for a very long time.”

Prior to the reveal, social media seemed to hint that Jake and Rae were not together, either. In January, for example, Rae tweeted there “ain’t much out there to have feelings for.” And just prior to The Ultimatum’s premiere, Jake’s relationship status on Facebook was listed as “single.” Though things didn’t work out between them, they still seemed to be on good terms with each other during the reunion, regardless.