`Bachelor in Paradise' star talks about post-show breakup
>> You'll have to forgive Kylee Russell if she's been hard to catch up with over the past month and a half or so.
For a good portion of December and January, Russell — who gained realityTV fame in 2023 on ABC's “The Bachelor” and then spinoff show “Bachelor in Paradise” — has been getting ready to uproot her entire life and move to San Diego for a fresh start, after spending the first 26 years of it in the Charlotte area. So, needless to say, things have been “a little bit crazy on my end,” she admits.
But even more so, the alumna of Lake Norman Charter School and Wingate University desperately needed some time to decompress. And to heal herself, emotionally.
To recap her transformation from postpartum nurse at Atrium Health Cabarrus hospital in Concord into nurse-slash-reality-TV star:
• In the fall of 2022, Russell joined 29 other women vying for the affection of Zach Shallcross on the 27th season of “The Bachelor” (which aired from January to March 2023); became the center of a conversation about microaggressions toward Black women; and eventually left in tears after being rejected by Shallcross.
• At some point, Aven Jones — runner-up of the 2022 season of “The Bachelorette” — began liking Russell's social-media posts; she would go on to reveal that she'd had a crush on him since before that started; however, they'd never met or even communicated prior to meeting during production of “Bachelor in Paradise” in Mexico last June.
• They hit it off; and despite some tension (due to Russell's desire for Jones to propose before the end of filming and Jones's reluctance to do so), they ultimately left the beach as a couple.
• For more than five months, including throughout “Bachelor in Paradise's” September-to-December run, Russell and Jones continued dating; but just two days after the season finale ended on Dec. 7 — and one day after they announced publicly that they were still together — Russell posted on Instagram that they had split “due to multiple infidelities.”
Then, for several weeks, she tried her best to lay low.
“I did a little bit of a social media hiatus,” she says, “as well as I went on family vacation right after that, out of the country.”
“It was like my heart was ripped out of my chest,” Russell explains of the postfinale revelation. “I think what hurt the most is how blindsided I was. Cheating — I mean, that in of itself is just a hard topic. It's something hard to go through. ... I've never been in a relationship where I've been cheated on before, so this was all new territory to me — as well as it being so public. It was just a hard concept to grasp, because literally up until that moment when I found out, I had planned my whole life around this relationship. I had planned a move to San Diego. I really, truly saw my future and was making future plans with this person.”
But she is indeed still moving to San Diego (more on that in a minute). Tuesday, in fact, marked her last day on the job at the hospital.
And after more than six weeks of relative silence, Russell has started opening up about how she came to discover that Jones was being unfaithful to her.
Russell heads west in about a week, and she says she actually feels better about the move now than she did when she was planning to make it to be in the same city as Jones.
“I love Charlotte,” she says. “I'm so close to my family. I'm 10 minutes away from my parents. If I'm not at work, I'm over there. I barely even stayed in my apartment. So when Aven and I were together, the thought of moving to San Diego was really hard for me, just because it seemed very permanent. Aven just started a new job there. He's developed a life for himself there, and he loves it. So he doesn't really see himself moving. And that was something I was potentially sacrificing. I was like, OK, if I move there with him, this could be a long-term thing before we get back to Charlotte. I could be here for 10plus years. That terrified me.
“When we broke up, I was like, OK, I don't have to make this move now. But I think for myself and for my own personal growth, it's something that I for sure want to do. I feel like right now in my life, I'm at a stagnant place in Charlotte. I really just, like, go to work, come home and hang out with my family. Also, a lot of my friends from the show are moving there, or have already moved there.
“So I think it's a good place to be to get me out of my comfort zone. To be able to really just live and enjoy life with friends — and now that I'm just going for myself, it doesn't feel as permanent. If I go and I commit myself for a year, I don't necessarily love it, and I want to come back to Charlotte, I can. Or if I get down there and I absolutely love it, then if I want to stay for 10-plus years, I can. But it feels more so on my own terms, rather than having to feel bound by a relationship.”
The job Russell mentioned that she's accepted in San Diego is as an aesthetic nurse at a medspa. She wasn't able to find a postpartum nursing job in San Diego. But if she ultimately decides to return to Charlotte, she hopes Atrium Health Cabarrus will have her back.
As for whether she'd ever consider a return to “The Bachelor” franchise?
“I never want to say never,” she says, “because I don't want to one day go back (onto the show) and look like a hypocrite. Right now, personally, in my life, I don't foresee doing something like that again. But ... if the right opportunity presented itself, or I was just like, you know, what the heck, let's give it one more try ... it's something I would be open to.”
She does, after all, still believe in love — and still even believes it can happen on television.
“Because I felt that,” Russell says. “I had never loved someone more than I ever loved Aven. But unfortunately, it ended the way it did. And that's not necessarily because of the show. It's just because of someone's own personality flaw. So I think I do believe in what the show has to offer, and I do believe it works.
“Just with the right person.”