Status: Split
Well before several other members of Bachelor Nation asked him to hold his beer, Jillian Harris' final rose recipient Ed Swiderski was the franchise villain. Following months of cheating allegations that he called "not true at all", the duo called off their engagement in 2010. "He was so wrong for me," she later told Popsugar, acknowledging that she tried to force things to work because she was in love. "Ed wasn't honest, he wasn't close with his family, he wasn't close with my family or my friends. He didn't have the same values as I did, he wasn't patient, he wasn't sweet, there was nothing about him that was great for me."
Status: Married
Who even remembers that sweet divorced dad Jason Mesnick originally proposed to Melissa Rycroft? Okay, probably a lot of people, as his 2009 After the Final Rose switcheroo still ranks as one of the series' most shocking moments. But if all's well that end's well, the only thing that matters is that the Seattle-based parents to daughter Riley have been married since February 2010.
"Let me apologize publicly again for putting you through the Bachelor mess that I created," Jason, also dad to teen Ty, wrote in an anniversary tribute. "With that being said... it built an incredible, unique, foundation for us to build our family—showing that we can make it through anything."
Sure, the After the Final Rose special wasn't the former Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader's best day ever, but she soon reconnected with former flame turned husband Tye Strickland, dad to her three kids.
Pivoting from being blindsided by two-time Bachelor Brad Womack to handing out the roses on The Bachelorette in 2008, the Georgia native did a full-180, accepting a proposal from snowboarder Jesse Csincsak. Coming off their engagement high "was really, really difficult," she admitted to E! News in 2022. "I chose someone that I could not be more incompatible with. He loved to snowboard. I freaking hate the snow. He would, seriously, wake up at 5 a.m. to go and snowboard all day, and I am a night owl. He came to stay with me in Georgia. But it was so freaking hot and he hated it. So honestly, when we broke up, I was baffled by how devastated he pretended to be."
DeAnna married Stephen Stagliano in 2011, but the parents of daughter Addison and son Austin announced they were separating in January.
British Bachelor Matt Grant and actress Shayne Lamas got engaged at the end of his season, but they only lasted two months after the airing of the finale in 2008.
Navy officer Andy Baldwin proposed to social worker Tessa Horst in the Bachelor season 10 finale, but they called off the engagement three months after the 2007 finale, insisting they were still together. Shortly after, the two broke up for good.
Charlie O'Connell picked labor and delivery nurse Sarah Brice in season seven, but did not propose during the 2005 finale. They broke up after a couple years together, but then got back together in 2008. The couple called it quits officially in 2012.
Following his 2004 finale, fisherman Byron Velvick and sales manager Mary Delgado were off and on for more than five years until finally ending their relationship in December 2009.
Former NFL quarterback and future Bachelor host Jesse Palmer did not take a knee with final rose recipient Jessica Bowlin, and the two decided to just date instead. They were done a mere month after the 2004 finale.He eventually returned to the Bachelor mansion a married man. He and model Emely Fardo first eloped in Connecticut at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, then flew to France in 2022 to exchange vows in front of friends and family. In August 2023, the couple revealed they were expecting their first baby. "This is a dream come true for us," the wrote in a joint Instagram post, "and we're so thrilled to be welcoming our baby girl in January 2024."
Though model and makeup artist Meredith Phillips had fully fallen for financier Ian McKee, "I wasn't expecting him to, you know, give me a ring," she told Good Morning America of the 2004 proposal. They broke off their engagement a year later. The date night cookbook author went on to marry high school sweetheart Michael Broady.
Lovable Bachelor Bob Guiney offered mortgage broker Estella Gardinier a promise ring in lieu of an engagement ring, but that promise only lasted for a month after the 2004 finale aired.Now settled in Michigan with wife Jessica Canyon and their two sons, the experience remains wild. "It got to the point where I started to think that you could have had a monkey handing out flowers and people would have fallen in love with him," he confessed to E! News. "I remember at a rose ceremony just going, 'This is no prize, ladies.' It didn't make the air. But I was trying just to make it real. I was so afraid I was going to walk off that show and people were going to go, 'This is not at all what they told me he was.' I didn't have a hot air balloon. The Lear jet wasn't mine."
Winemaker Andrew Firestone offered his final rose recipient a ring in 2003, but their romance went sour after seven months. Andrew married Ivana Bozilovic in 2008. Jen married Joe Waterman in 2009.
After a six-week whirlwind of hot tubs and champagne toasts, Miami-based physical therapist Trista Rehn (who first saw an ad for ABC's dating experiment while watching TV) accepted a proposal from dashing fire fighter Ryan Sutter.Following months of secret rendezvous ("They flew him with a handler and he had to wear a wig," she recalled in a 2022 interview with E! News), they capped off their dramatic journey with a televised December 2003 wedding. The OG Bachelorette's proposal was met with a lot of doubts. Since the series' first two Bachelors had split with their final rose recipients within a year of their finales airing, "it hadn't really ever been proven by anybody that you could have a successful relationship," Trista noted to E!. "But we proved them all wrong!"The Colorado-based pair—parents to Maxwell, and Blakesley—will celebrate their 20th anniversary this December, presumably without red roses, which remain among most of the leads' least favorite blooms.
Banker Aaron Buerge proposed to school psychologist Helene Eksterowicz at the end of season two, but they broke up five weeks after the 2002 finale aired."The tabloids were showing up in Springfield, my hometown in Missouri," Aaron recalled to E! News of his experience. "And they were calling me at the bank all the time and walking in the lobby." Now wed to commercial insurance agent Angye Buerge, the father of three wrote in a 2022 Instagram post, "I feel extremely blessed and grateful to be on this journey in life with you Babe!"