The Bachelorette’s Jed Wyatt’s Ex-Girlfriend Reveals Why She Came Forward With Cheating Claim

It’s safe to say that Bachelorette contestant Jed has some explaining to do.

This week, it was revealed that the man vying for Hannah Brown‘s affections might not be the person viewers thought he was. In fact, he seemed to be stringing along a woman from Nashville in the weeks leading up to his role on the reality show. That woman has now come forward to warn Hannah about his actions and to personally share her side of the story. 

In an exclusive interview with E! News, the musician named Haley Stevens explains that a combination of things motivated her to come forward with her experience. She shares, “Honestly, I never planned on opening up about any of this. I planned to keep my head down and get through it.”

At first, she says she stayed silent because she thought “no one was going to believe” anything that she said.

Haley adds, “This is the most-watched television show in all of the country and everyone loves the guys on the show, why would anyone believe what I had to say?”

However, she says she eventually realized, “This was my love story. I wanted to be in control of what people said.” 

So, what really happened between her and the country crooner?

Well, she says that their “love story” began last fall, months before Jed would be casted for The Bachelorette. Haley reveals that she was aware of the “possibility” that he might join the show, but she never could have foreseen the “whirlwind” romance that lay ahead of her. 

Haley says that within a matter of months, they met each other’s families and even took a vacation together. It was during that getaway, which took place just before he joined the show, that she says they confessed their love for one another. 

Then, he just left. “I never even got broken up with. Never got any explanation,” she claims. “I could get choked up thinking about it right now.”

Haley adds, “This was the person that I was in love with… It’s devastating, honestly. It’s hurtful.”

Stevens never even got a sense of closure after Jed returned from filming the show. She says that two weeks after he came home they ran into each other during a night out on the town in Nashville, but they didn’t talk. “So I see him out, he obviously sees me and we made eye contact and he still doesn’t speak to me,” the musician reveals.

The end of their love story came as a major disappointment to Haley, who says that after she saw him she would “stay awake at night thinking, ‘Do I have a baseball bat, can I go full-on Carrie Underwood with him?'” The answer was no.

The artist says she is “torn” and that “every part” of her wants to believe that their relationship meant something to him. “In all of this, I am not naïve to the fact that people fall in love. People fall out of love. People fall in love while they are dating someone else. Those things happen. These were strange circumstances obviously,” she explains. “I wouldn’t blame him if he did fall for [Hannah].”

She even feels bad for Hannah. Haley says that she never thought The Bachelorette would be so “real,” but after seeing parts of the show she sees that The Bachelorette is “genuinely” putting her heart into the experience.

And she and Hannah aren’t alone. This isn’t the first time, and it surely won’t be the last, that a contestant has kept a romance private. Some women have reached out to Stevens to say they can relate, which has made her feel like “maybe it was worth this terrifying thing.”

But now, Haley is ready to move on, even if Jed isn’t. She says, “He could tell me a million things but at the end of the day, I have to be the one to move on… The show doesn’t air forever.”

In the meantime, Haley plans on focusing on her career with Sweet Leah Music and on creating “the best version of me.”