Love is hard, and finding it on television is harder. Ashley Iaconetti and Kevin Wendt got together on The Bachelor’s winter offspring, The Bachelor Winter Games, and it seemed to be going fine… until it wasn’t. Fortunately, both have found love since they parted, but do Ashley Iaconetti and Kevin Wendt still talk after The Bachelor? It doesn’t seem like they’re hanging out all the time.
Ashley first came into American households as “the one who cried a lot” on Chris Soules’ season of The Bachelor, and Kevin went far on the Canadian version of The Bachelorette. In the snowy wilderness of The Bachelor Winter Games, the two really hit it off, and they “won” The Bachelor Winter Games (to this day, I don’t know what it means or if they won anything at all). Kevin even allegedly took Ashley’s virginity, which she had spoken at length about on The Bachelor and multiple seasons of Bachelor In Paradise. But it wasn’t to last — just a few weeks after The Bachelor Winter Games finished airing in American homes, Ashley and Kevin announced their split. How sad! And… not unexpected, considering they met on a television dating show. But it’s still sad.
This is the part of the program where we could say, “Yeah, maybe Kevin and Ashley talk,” because sometimes people want to stay friends with their exes. But, just a few months after Kevin and Ashley broke up, Ashley got engaged in Paradise to longtime friend and short-time boyfriend Jared Haibon. This was all announced before Paradise even started, so when Kevin, a Bachelor In Paradise contestant, told the world that Ashley cheated on him with Jared, people were a little shocked.
“When Ashley and I left Winter Games, I knew I wanted to marry her one day,” Kevin said during the Season 5 premiere. “And then all of a sudden Jared flips the switch and now he wants to be with her. I did try to make it work, but if you kiss another guy while you’re dating someone else, that’s cheating in my book. That really hurt me.” Kevin then said that he wanted to move on.
On her podcast, Ashley explained her actions, saying, “I was dating Kevin like out in the real world for two weeks and Jared came out about his feelings and he kissed me in the airport… Whether you call that cheating that is up to you, by most definitions that is true.” Luckily for Kevin, he’s really hitting it off on Bachelor In Paradise with Astrid Loch, and it seems like he’s moving on. (Let's hope they're still together!)
Is he talking to Ashley, though? There doesn’t seem to be any contact between the two. They didn’t break up that long ago, and it was under contentious circumstances. Judging by the previews for BiP this week, where Ashley and Jared come to Paradise to actually get engaged in front of Kevin — things could get a little awkward. And really, though, what is there, to say, really? It’s nice to be friends with an ex, but it’s not necessary. Sometimes, you need a little time as a buffer to be able to do that. Ashley and Kevin aren’t maligning each other in the press, but are they watching The Bachelor together on Monday nights with their significant others? It doesn’t seem like it. These two are moving on, and that’s that.
