Bachelor Nation couldn’t be happier for newly engaged alum Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon, but the circumstances under which they finally got together is now coming to light with the new season of Bachelor in Paradise.
Iaconetti spoke out about whether or not she cheated on her ex-boyfriend Kevin Wendt with her now fiance Jared Haibon on her podcast, The Ben & Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast. “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,” she said.
“And we had mentioned this before — I admitted before I was dating Kevin when Jared kissed me,” the reality star said. “Whether you call that cheating that is up to you, by most definitions that is true,” Iaconetti continued.
“But, it was one of the moments of passion, one of those actions — he pulled me in, I kissed him back.”
She did add, “I never kissed him again until Kevin and I broke up after my birthday on March 6.” Iaconetti also said that despite Haibon being the man she wanted to be with, she did feel guilty after she kissed him back and was “shaken up” because Wendt was a really good guy.
Iaconetti and Wendt’s romance blossomed after The Bachelor Winter Games, and it was Wendt who suggest cheating had happened during the season 5 premiere of Bachelor in Paradise on Monday, August 6.
“When Ashley and I left Winter Games, I knew I wanted to marry her one day,” Wendt explained on the show.
“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,” he added.
Despite what happened, Iaconetti admits it was because of Kevin that Haibon finally felt the “push” to declare his feelings. “Jared even says, ‘Hey if it weren’t for him who knew how long it would have taken,’” Iaconetti added.