Ben Higgins Says He and Lauren Bushnell Lane Were Like 'Work Associates' Before Calling Off Wedding

Ben Higgins is opening up about the end of his engagement to Lauren Bushnell Lane.

The Bachelor alum, 35, shared on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast that he and his ex-fiancée, 34, were barely talking and were attending couples counseling before they planned on getting hitched.

Higgins proposed to Bushnell Lane during season 20, but the two then called off their engagement in 2017 after the series Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After?.

But during the Tuesday, May 28 podcast episode, he explained to hosts — and Bachelor In Paradise alums — Joe AmabileandSerena Pitt that he and Bushnell Lane were “struggling for about a month” into filming the spinoff series.

He recalled that the former couple was asked by previous Bachelor host Chris Harrison if they wanted to have their wedding televised. But he noted at the time Harrison asked, he and Bushnell Lane were in couples counseling and “were really trying to make it work.”

“We were not doing it. I mean, we were butting heads,” revealed Higgins, adding that when the pair were asked about the televised wedding, they were “already kind of not talking.” 

“We were kind of more work associates,” said Higgins. “We were living in the same house, we weren't really speaking to each other off camera because the cameras would leave at nine o'clock we'd be exhausted. I might be having to go to work the next day. She would be doing her thing with her job, and so she was still flying as a flight attendant a little bit -

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and we'd just be like, dead tired.” 

“We wouldn’t to talk to each other. We hadn't talked to each other really truly in weeks,” he recalled. He then added that after they received the offer they agreed they would marry on national television, but then they both said during one of the final episodes of Ben & Lauren, "I don't think we're gonna get married."

As Higgins continued, he revealed that the day after filming wrapped for their spinoff, the former couple agreed on the phone that their relationship was “done” and that it was “not healthy” for either of them.

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Following the pair's split, Higgins tied the knot with Jessica Clarke in November 2021. After their wedding, Higgins told PEOPLE, "Here I had my best friend standing in front of me glowing with beauty. I am so lucky to commit my life to hers."

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"I am overly joyful," he gushed, adding that he and Clarke hoped to have kids within a few years. "The best way to describe it is a feeling of acceptance and love."

Two years prior, Bushnell Lane married Chris Lane in October 2019, and since the two have welcomed two sons: Baker and Dutton Walker.

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