Bachelor Nation couple Chris Randone and Krystal Nielson, who met while filming season 5 of Bachelor in Paradise in 2018, have announced their separation after just under eight months of marriage.
Before meeting on the beaches of Mexico, Randone was a contestant on the 14th season of The Bachelorette while competing for Becca Kufrin’s heart, and Nielson was a contestant on the 22nd season of The Bachelor with Arie Luyendyk Jr. as the lead. Both Nielson and Randone were sent home during the sixth week of their respective seasons, which led them to Bachelor in Paradise. The couple left the season engaged and were married in a televised ceremony on June 16, 2019, in Mexico where they first met. The wedding was officiated by Bachelor Nation host Chris Harrison. Less than a year after they wed, the couple has announced their separation.
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In a statement made to ABC’s Bachelor Nation, Krystal and Chris announced that they have “mutually decided to separate” because they’ve “come to a point where we both need to work on ourselves.” In the short statement, the couple wrote that they are “best friends that love and care for each other so deeply,” and the couple said that while they’ve “appreciated everyone’s love and support so far throughout our journey,” they ask that everyone “please respect our privacy as we navigate through this.” The couple wrote “never did [they] imagine this scenario.” While they announced their separation, they didn’t mention that they’d be divorcing, which seems to leave the door open for a possible reconciliation in the future, though there wasn’t any indication in their statement that they’d consider getting back together.
Krystal and Chris are the second couple from their season of Bachelor in Paradise to announce their split in the last few weeks. Beloved couple Joe Amabile and Kendall Long unexpectedly announced their split at the end of January 2020, citing an inability to agree upon where they wanted to live long term as the reason for their break up. Now that both these couples have separated, there is only one couple left from season 5 of the popular summer reality show still together: Kevin Wendt & Astrid Loch, who announced their engagement in September 2019. Two couples from the 2019 season are still going strong, Dylan Barbour and Hannah Godwin, and Dean Unglert and Caelynn Miller-Keyes, as well as a handful of couples from seasons prior to 2018. ABC can still lure all their viewers in with the promise of love everlasting.
While the Bachelor in Paradise format certainly has a higher success rate than the other shows in Bachelor Nation, Chris and Krystal were one of the few couples who had managed to make it down the aisle and their separation adds fuel to the continuous claims that you can’t find love on a reality television show. Fans of the show and the couple have already started speculating that perhaps the couple was never legally married in the first place - which is what happened with former Bachelor Nation couple Marcus Grodd and Lacy Faddoul. If they were never legally married, it would make the decision to separate much easier for the couple, but neither the couple nor ABC has addressed the legitimacy of the marriage. Krystal and Chris were one couple who truly seemed to be in love and the news of their split is certainly a shock for Bachelor in Paradise fans, but they will keep holding on to the glimmer of hope for a reconciliation until they know for sure.
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Source: Bachelor Nation
