After Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon surprised Bachelor Nation by announcing they're dating, Iaconetti confirmed she's found her "soul mate."
"He is my person," she told Bachelor alum Ben Higgins during iHeartRadio's The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast on Tuesday. "He is my soul mate."
Fans watched Iaconetti pursue and cry over Haibon on season two and season three of Bachelor in Paradise. While Iaconetti knew he was the one from the first day they met in 2015, it took a little bit longer for Haibon to fully realize his true feelings.
The two went on a date during their first season of Bachelor in Paradise; however, Haibon dumped Iaconetti. Still, the two remained friends and had a few flings in the fall.
"I never felt like it was over between us after Paradise, which is why I said we're still going to be friends," he said during a YouTube video of the couple's love story The Story of Us. "Like, it just didn't feel over."
However, the two experienced their fair share of drama during their second season of Bachelor in Paradise and decided to date other people. Haibon went on to appear in Bachelor in Paradise Australia and Iaconetti went on to star in another spinoff called Bachelor Winter Games. There, she developed a romance with Canadian participant Kevin Wendt.
During her discussion with Higgins, Iaconetti explained "there was no crossover" and that she "never cheated on Kevin or anything like that." However, she admitted that she and Haibon talked about his feelings before Bachelor Winter Games aired.
That conversation came after the two went on a group trip to St. Lucia with fellow Bachelor In Paradise couple Tanner Tolbert and Jade Roper. After consulting Tolbert, Haibon confessed his feelings to Iaconetti and gave her a kiss at the airport. However, Iaconetti decided to continue to date Wendt. But once Wendt and Iaconetti broke up in March, Haibon pursued her one more time with a love letter. The rest, as they say, is history.
"In a way, he was harboring feelings for awhile, but he didn't want to come out with them until he was 100 percent," Iaconetti tearfully told Higgins. "Honestly, he kind of said he needed an earthquake and, like, he got his earthquake. Then, he told me and then he's been like super happy and amazing. Like, he was in such this dark place for awhile and now he's just like a mush ball in the best way, and he's, like, so full of love."
Iaconetti said she loves her now boyfriend of a few months "very much" and that he loves her.
"He's so cute every day," she said during the podcast. "He goes...‘Do you know how much I love you? I don't think you know.'"
During an interview with fellow Bachelor alumni Dean Unglert and Vanessa Grimaldi on Help! I Suck at Dating, Haibon admitted he was a "very closed off human being for a long time" and that he knew he was making "the biggest mistake of [his] life" by not being with Iaconetti.
Now that they're together, he sees a long-term future with her. While the two are not living together, Haibon seemed to suggest that she's the one.
"I know, I don't want to speak for Ashley, but like, obviously we've talked about it and we see this as, you know, it for us, so to speak" he said. "Life partner, love, marriage, kids, the whole—I mean I hope so."