Melissa Rycroft, Nikki FerrellYou can find out more BachelorStars were able to marry someone they knew before trying to find love on TV.
Rycroft, for her portion, dated Tye StricklandBefore she left to film season 13, The Bachelor2008
“Tye tried to call me, like, right as I got back in the country from filming, he was calling,” Rycroft recalled on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast in August 2020, noting he wanted her back. “I didn’t believe [him]. I mean, I was like, ‘Whatever.’ And not only that, I am engaged and I’m happy and you are a tool bag.”
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader was engaged to Jason MesnickDuring the finale, which aired on 2009, he ended their engagement to reunite them with runner up Molly Malaney.Rycroft and Strickland reconnected after the split.
“And then I just started talking to him again as a friend. And three, four weeks after that, we officially got back together under the stipulation that I said, ‘This time, it’s for good,’ you know,” she explained. “He was a hard relationship to get over, which is why I even went on the show and I had just gone through everything with Jason and I was, like, I don’t know if [I was]Although I was emotionally ready to get back into a relationship, Tye was the man that I wanted to be with before this all happened. And I think having the show air, we weren’t really allowed to see each other, you know, so we just got to talk and focus on our friendship. And I think that’s what made the relationship the second time around that much stronger.”
Rycroft and Strickland married in December 2009 and had three children: Ava, Beckett, and Cayson. (Mesnick & Malaney, however, were married in 2010 and have a daughter Riley.
“2008 for me was strange. I was filmed leaving a reality series and I got engaged. I was dumped and, in 2009, I started a new relationship. I’m engaged,” Rycroft concluded. “And by the end of 2009, I was married.”
Scroll down to see more contestants who have met their significant others before they were on the ABC dating competition.
