Getty Ben Higgins had an unexpected run-in with his ex's husband.
Former Bachelor Ben Higgins had an unexpected run-in with his ex-fiance Lauren Bushnell’s husband Chris Lane at a charity golf tournament in January 2023.
Here’s what you need to know:
Ben Higgins Recalls Meeting Chris Lane
Higgins met Bushnell on season 20 of “The Bachelor” in 2016. The two got engaged during the finale but never made it down the aisle. They split in 2017, E! News reported, and Bushnell later married country music star Chris Lane in the fall of 2019, Us Weekly reported.
Higgins spoke about running into his ex’s husband on the January 25 episode of his podcast, “Almost Famous.”
“I was nervous,” Higgins said, recounting the event. “I haven’t seen Lauren since we split. How often do you want to run into your exes?”
Higgins went into more detail about the weekend during an appearance on former “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison’s podcast, “The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever.”
On the Monday, January 23, episode, Higgins told fans that his ex’s husband was assigned the locker directly next to him at the charity tournament.
“I was anxious about it, and then to walk into the locker room and see that, ‘Oh, we’re going to be definitely running into each other. … We’re going to be putting our shoes on, changing together,'” he said.
However, Higgins’s first interaction with Lane wasn’t in the locker room but rather at the bar after the first night of the tournament.
“Right away, I saw him. He didn’t see me [because] he kind of had his head turned,” Higgins said on the podcast, recalling their first meeting. “I walked up and I said, ‘Hey Chris, good to see you.'”
The ABC star said his interaction with the “Hold You Tonight” singer was “nothing but great” and he praised Lane for how he handled the interaction.
“When I said that he could’ve been a jerk to me and he wasn’t, so it moves it to a healthy place,” he said. “He could’ve been like, ‘Dude, don’t talk to me,’ and then it would’ve been like, ‘Well, crap. Now we have four days of weirdness.’ He didn’t at all! It was a healthy interaction.”
Lauren Says She ‘Hit Rock Bottom’ After Her Split from Ben
Bushnell opened up about her difficult split from Higgins in a May 2022 interview with Page Six.
“I was really in a low place. I was kind of at that rock bottom place,” she told the outlet. “I think I needed to just be alone, refocus on myself and rebuild who I was without a camera in my face.”
The former “Bachelor” contestant also revealed she has regrets about filming the reality show “Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?” with her ex-fiance.
“Looking back, I don’t think it was the best idea to do [‘Happily Ever After?’] because at that point in time, I was definitely still processing a lot of what happened,” she said.
“I don’t necessarily like all eyes on me,” she added. “There was a lot of criticism involved. The foundation was rocky already, and not just the relationship but my own mental health.”
“The Bachelor” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern time on ABC.
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