Aaron Buerge and Helene Eksterowicz, The Bachelor Season 2
Length of Relationship: Two months
He Said: The Bachelor agreed to do a televised interview about the split after his former girlfriend went on the record. "I have nothing bad to say about her," he said, "and I don't want different accounts of my story turning into rumors."
But fan attention certainly added to the stress. "The tabloids were showing up in Springfield, my hometown in Missouri," Aaron told E! News in 2022. "And they were calling me at the bank all the time and walking in the lobby."
She Said: Helene said she was shocked when Aaron told her he was no longer invested in their relationship. "It felt like a bomb dropped," she said to People shortly after their 2003 split. "I said, 'I feel very deceived by you. You've told me every single day that you love me, and now this is it?'"
Alex Michael and Amanda Marsh, The Bachelor Season 1
Length of Relationship: One year
He Said: Trista Sutter, Alex's runner-up and eventual Bachelorette, revealed he had told her he'd messed up by choosing Amanda. "Basically he told me that he thought he had made a mistake,"she spilled to TV Guide in 2003. "He'll probably deny that he said [that he'd made a mistake]."
She Said: Under normal circumstances, they may have had a shot, the nurse practioner reflected to E! News in 2022. "Alex and I turned out to be rather compatible and dated about a year after filming," she explained. "We had different pictures of what the future looked like and long-distance, it was stacked to fail. Now, it appears that [production] is a little bit more involved in helping the relationships at least have an opportunity. We didn't. When it stopped filming in February, we got to get together in March secretly in Mexico and then I didn't get to see him until May. Then it ended up being two weeks out of a month and no real normalcy could develop."
But while their romance didn't last, Alex and Amanda's friendship did, with Amanda revealing they kept in touch for a while, exchanging emails a few times a year.