Bachelor Nation's Lauren Bushnell Recalls Hitting "Rock Bottom" After Ben Higgins Breakup

It’s been five years since former Bachelor couple Lauren Bushnell and Ben Higgins called off their engagement. Now, she's looking back at the breakup and the attention around it.

By Elyse Dupre May 17, 2022 4:41 PMTags
Watch: Newlyweds Lauren Bushnell & Chris Lane Reveal Wedding Secrets

Lauren Bushnell is looking back at a thorny time in her life following her breakup with Ben Higgins

The former flight attendant and the reality star fell in love and got engaged on his season of The Bachelor, which aired in 2016. Later that year, they starred on the spinoff series Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After?, which ended with them calling off their wedding. Ben and Lauren continued to work on their relationship off camera, but they ultimately split in 2017.

"I was really in a low place. I was kind of at that rock bottom place," she told Page Six while recently discussing her partnership with Wyndham and its Extra Mile program. "I needed to get there, though, in order to reflect and figure out who I was and what I wanted. I think I needed to just be alone, refocus on myself and rebuild who I was without a camera in my face."

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Reflecting on that time, Lauren told the outlet she doesn't "think it was the best idea" to appear on Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After? as she "was definitely still processing a lot of what happened" and "having doubts" about their relationship. Although, the public scrutiny that came with being catapulted into fame didn't make things any easier.

"I don't necessarily like all eyes on me. There was a lot of criticism involved. The foundation was rocky already, and not just the relationship but my own mental health," she continued. "I enjoyed my time on The Bachelor more than I enjoyed doing that show. I was more comfortable in a setting like The Bachelor where you're one of 20 or 25 women and it wasn't just cameras on you all day long, every day."

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Still, Lauren said she and Ben ultimately broke up because they simply weren't the best match for each other. "I think we shared a lot of the same core values, but personality-wise, I don't think we were super compatible," she told the outlet. "I don't even think it had anything to do with the show or the spotlight or anything like that. Also, I was young. I think I needed to do a lot of reflecting on myself, and I had a lot of growing to do."

For his part, Ben suggested he and Lauren just couldn't get back to that rosy place they had been in at the beginning.  

"I think mutually Lauren and I saw that life was getting more difficult," he told fellow Bachelor Nation member and cohost Ashley Iaconetti on a 2017 episode their show The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast. "I would say the joy that we felt toward our relationship at the beginning was, for some reason, slipping away, and we were both working very hard to bring that joy back. And it just never seemed to get there. So, it was a long time coming, but it wasn't necessarily like we dragged it out."

However, they've both moved on. Lauren wed Chris Lane in 2019, with the couple welcoming their son Dutton Walker Lane in June, and Ben tied the knot with Jessica Clarke in November. And ultimately, he hopes Bachelor Nation can move on, too, noting in his 2019 podcast episode that "my life isn't as closely tied to Lauren anymore."

But that doesn't mean there's any bad blood. "I feel like our conversations, which are obviously few and far between, have always been very cordial and nice. I don't think either of us have ever wished the other person ill will at all," Lauren told Page Six. "I've had relationships that ended that did not end well and didn't have that same level of respect we have for each other." 

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