It’s not uncommon for BachelorWinners or Bachelorette leads to slip a Neil Lane diamond on their finger during the finale of their respective seasons — but how many former contestants get to keep their rings? Us WeeklyBachelor Nation has compiled the answers.
Bachelor Nation members can keep the ABC series’ gift of an engagement ring in one of two ways. Make it down the aisle … or stay engaged for at least two years.
“After a certain number of years, you get to keep it anyway. But after months … it goes back,” former host Chris HarrisonConfirmed Entertainment WeeklyIn 2016, he joked that he keeps the stones after a breakup. “They’re on a necklace and I’ll wear it around sometimes. I’ll wear it out [and] I have, like, 20 different engagement rings.”
Chris mentioned that Neil, the designer who supplies rings for the franchise over a decade, may not be aware that some of the jewelry can be returned. During a 2016 interview with StyleCaster, Neil quipped that the diamonds go to “ring heaven” if the couple doesn’t last.
“After they get the ring, I don’t have a say in it, and what happens after that, I don’t know,” he said. “I do make these rings with a great deal of passion — I have my whole staff working on them, with a lot of romance involved. It’s a great idea that we hope will last forever. And surprisingly, there are some that are doing amazingly well.”
Season 14 Bachelorette Becca Kufrin once joked about a “ring graveyard,” telling the “Bachelor Party” podcast in December 2020: “They get to keep them all locked away, hidden from everyone — all the scorned rings.”
There are exceptions to the 2-year rule. Season 6 BacheloretteAli FedotowskyOriginally published on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast in 2020 that producers came to collect her engagement ring after her 2011 split from Roberto Martinez — but she refused to hand it over.
“[We were together for]18 months. I know this because they wanted to take my engagement rings away. And I was like, ‘No, this is part of my history, like, this is mine, you cannot have it!’” Ali recalled. “Per the contract, it was supposed to be two years, but they let me keep it.”
The former reality TV star is happily married. Kevin Manno, with whom she shares daughter Molly and son Riley, Ali admitted she was “emotionally distraught” from the breakup at the time.
“I was like, ‘You’re not taking this from me, like, I’m keeping it.’ I put my foot down,” she told Use. “And then they were fine with it. They understood when I, like, broke it down.”
For more information on the history of what happens to rings after a wedding, scroll through Bachelor split:
