The Bachelorette winner Nayte Olukoya has revealed that he broke up with Michelle Young and ended their engagement in a pretty brutal way.
|
ADVERTISEMENT
|
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Nayte reluctantly admitted, "You don't want to break up with somebody, especially your fiancee, over the phone."
Nayte proposed marriage to Michelle on The Bachelorette's Season 18 finale, which aired in December 2021, and the couple appeared blissfully happy. They were even gifted a $200,000 check for a down payment on their first house.
However, Nayte never moved to Michelle's hometown in Minnesota like they had originally planned, and the pair announced their breakup on June 17 via separate statements on their Instagram accounts.
Nayte said he called off his engagement shortly after celebrating Michelle's June 3 birthday in Los Angeles, CA, with a bunch of her friends.
"From the beginning of the weekend, things were kind of rocky. It got even more rocky when [the] Wango Tango [music festival in Los Angeles] happened, and her and I, we got into an argument right before we did all of those press interviews," Nayte explained.
"It was such a buildup, but long story short, the weekend was not a good weekend. Her and I were up late having very deep conversations. And I think the day before, I was having very deep conversations with her friends too because her friends, they weren't having a good time either."
Nayte said it was "just a bad weekend for everybody" and he received some advice from Michelle's friends about his failing relationship and lack of compatibility with Michelle.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
"So the last day in L.A., a conversation was kind of already heading towards a breakup... [But] it wasn't our first time having breakup conversations," Nayte revealed. "This is probably our third time having a breakup conversation."
(Nayte recalled having his first breakup conversation with Michelle in early January, shortly after the public found out about their The Bachelorette engagement in late 2021).
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWNayte said when he left L.A. to go back to Austin, TX, after Michelle's birthday, it was "already being said, without being said" that their relationship had run its course.
Nayte recalled being "frustrated" and "so lost and so confused" in his feelings.
Nayte said he called his mother crying in the airport because he didn't know what to do, and then he called his little sister and ended up crying on the plane ride to Austin.
Nayte -- who got choked up when telling Nick the story -- said he and Michelle were supposed to attend CMA Fest concert festival together the following weekend, which ran from June 9 through June 12 in Nashville, TN.
But Nayte told Michelle, "I said, 'I do not feel comfortable going to the CMAs, I don't,' because something happened right before Wango Tango. And I was just like, 'I'm not doing this... I do not feel comfortable doing the CMAs.'"
Nayte shared how once he landed in Austin, he called his mother again as well as friends and other family.
"I was just like, 'I don't see the relationship working anymore,'" Nayte said. "I was frustrated as hell, and was crying on the phone with my mom."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
ADVERTISEMENT
"She's like, 'Hey, if we're not doing CMAs next week we have to give them a reason why,'" Nayte noted. "And I just blurted out, like, 'We're not doing CMAs because I can't be with you anymore.'"
He added, "So yeah, I broke up with her over the phone, which is a dick move."
But Nayte said it took about six days to officially break up with Michelle.
"There was lots of conversations, lots of late-night conversations, texting, phone calls, FaceTimes and things like that," Nayte said. "And then it got messy. The post-breakup got messy, and so communication between Michelle and I ended, I don't know, maybe in, like, mid-July."
Nayte previously insisted he never cheated on Michelle, and Michelle admitted she never saw the breakup coming. The Bachelorette alum Kaitlyn Bristowe also confirmed how Michelle was "blindsided" by her breakup with Nayte.
Nayte got into depth about why he broke up with Michelle during the podcast, and he told Nick, "We just stopped working... This sucks to talk about and this is hard, but at the end of the day, I think Michelle and I can go to bed knowing that... it was the right thing to do."
"We just weren't right for each other," he concluded.
As for what's next for the former couple, Michelle announced in late May that she planned to step out of the classroom in 2023 in order to take a breather from teaching and exit "survival mode."
She said she wanted to try new things and pursue different goals, such as being a social-media influencer.
A source told Us Weekly last month that Nayte reportedly moved to Los Angeles a couple of weeks after the split to pursue a career as a model.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
