The rumors are true: Brandon Jones cheated on Serene Russell. It’s as if no one has respect for the sanctity of romance formed on reality TV.
On Bachelor in Paradise, the two love birds made it all the way to the end and got engaged. After the show, rumors of infidelity started plaguing them before they could make it down the aisle. Now, Serene is revealing all of the details behind their messy breakup. She recently sat down with Kaitlyn Bristowe on her Off the Vine podcast, and she shared all of the details about how her engagement went off the rails.
It was all Brandon Jones’ fault, according to Serene Russell
Serene said that a random person on Instagram tried to tip her off about Brandon’s cheating. When she didn’t respond, the tipster reached out to someone else from the franchise. Normally, you don’t listen to random people on Instagram in your DMs, but it turns out that this was the rare exception.
“After that, it was like, ‘There’s irreparable damage,’” Serene recalled.
Meanwhile, Bachelor Nation was in a frenzy with rumors about Brandon’s cheating because of a video that surfaced online of him getting cozy with a woman who definitely wasn’t Serene. Just a few days later, the two announced their split.
“After many months, today we have ultimately decided to end our engagement,” Brandon wrote on Instagram at the time. “We have tried to work privately on our relationship which has been incredibly challenging in the public eye.”
On the podcast, Kaitlyn asked Serene about the tone of their breakup announcement. The statement red like a mutual decision, when in actuality, Brandon was caught red-handed doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Serene explained that her heartbreak clouded her judgment.
“I was just in shock, I think,” Serene explained. “I didn’t know what the future held. I was in shock for a really long time. … I’ve never felt that depressed in my life. It was hard to deal with.”
What’s next for Serene?
Brandon humiliated Serene and broke her heart, but she told Kaitlyn that he did at least apologize for cheating. So, there’s one thing he did right. Still, they’re not currently in contact, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change anytime soon. She said that in addition to the infidelity, there were a lot of issues going on with in their relationship.
“We both had things we could have done better in the relationship,” Serene explained. “It was something that we were both very much still in, and we had gone to therapy, which was really cool. … It’s not this simple thing, like, ‘Oh, it just didn’t work.’ We tried to give ourselves the tools and set ourselves up for success, but there were just ultimately so many things.”
Now that the dust has settled from the breakup, Serene said that she’s been focusing on herself. She’s in her self-care era and working on not blaming herself for what happened with Brandon.
“The most painful part was the loss of trust that I had in myself,” Serene revealed. “That’s what I’ve been doing the most work on, is not beating myself up.”
Bachelor in Paradise is currently airing Season 9 on ABC, Thursdays at 9/8c.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN BRANDON JONES AND SERENE RUSSELL ANNOUNCED THEIR BREAKUP? ARE YOU SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT BRANDON ACTUALLY CHEATED?
