In the season seven premiere of Bachelor in Paradise, Kendall Long revealed on Us Weekly. Here for the Right Reasons podcast that she was on the beaches for only four days during that episode.
The 30-year-old Just Curious author appeared on the 2021 season of The Bachelor spinoff alongside ex-boyfriend Joe Amabile. The former couple dated for nearly two years after meeting on season 5 of BiP in 2018. In season 7, Kendall had to navigate seeing Joe fall in love with Sera Pitt.
“For lack of a beach, I felt dramatically nostalgic about Paradise because it was such an enchanting place the first time I went there. I had to go once more with the objective of resuscitating whatever of what we had over two years ago. Why would I boost that conspicuously in public when we held a two-year relationship, and what would have been left for the remainder of that year? I would’ve needed additional time in Mexico for healing.”
Kendall said on the Wednesday episode of the Here for the Right Reasons podcast that she had hopes of finding a partner and connecting with someone, and her expectations were met. “I had a small romantic thing with Ivan Hall and that was wonderful. But ultimately, seeing your ex in the place where you fell in love initially it had been deeply challenging for me, and I wasn’t anticipating it. I didn’t think I would be as emotional. I didn’t think that it would have a direct impact on me. I thought it was in effect going to be cool, [we’d be] buddies.”
Kendall explained to us that she did not want to watch the episodes from last summer, but it was tough for her to avoid the flabbergasted reaction from viewers, some of whom blamed her for still being in love with Joe. There was additional backlash after Kendall appeared to have returned to the Chicago native to speak to him moments before he planned to propose to Serena.
“Me thinking Joe was going through mental struggles and there was me there was getting between us prompted me to seek advice from him. Consequently, I decided that going back to talk to him would be a way to be like, “Hey, this chapter is finished.” It certainly was an example of how it ended. It was really a peculiar way to end it, but let’s make it not so peculiar, and let’s move on. I guess that there was never any proposal that warranted my doing something about it. And I even said, like, If there’s a proposal, I don’t want to talk to her. I won’t go to the beach because it’s your day.”
“Believing there was a proposal made me upset and slightly angry.” Kendall continued. “Yet that is precisely what it turned into. Hopefully, it didn’t even affect the bond between the two of them; it seems it didn’t affect their relationship in any way or their proposal in any way. Hopefully, it felt the same way, but I would have lost my patience being there.”
