Off the beach — and off the market? Salley Carson is playing coy about her relationship status following her brief stint on season 8 of Bachelor in Paradise.
“They’ll just have to keep wondering,” the 27-year-old ABC alum exclusively told Us Weekly at the Bachelor in Paradise Tastemaker Event in Los Angeles when asked whether she had reunited with her ex-fiancé ahead of the Tuesday, November 22, finale. “It’s the one thing I do not talk about, clearly, ’cause I left the beach.”
Salley teased that her love life post-Paradise will remain “the biggest mystery of all time,” refusing to reveal whether she was seeing someone.
Fans met the Virginia native during Clayton Echard‘s season 26 of The Bachelor, which aired earlier this year. Salley — whose chyron read “previously engaged” — opted not to participate in the limo entrances because she was still coping with calling off her wedding. She and her ex were slated to tie the knot one day after cameras started rolling.
Though her Bachelor journey was unsuccessful, Salley returned to the franchise in October hoping for another chance at finding The One. “I can’t believe I’m here! … Honestly, it feels good,” she told host Jesse Palmer when she arrived in Mexico. “I had to take care of some things at work — [but] my bag made it the first day of Paradise. … I literally made the decision at the gate. I checked my bags, I got to the gate, and I was like, ‘You know what? I can’t do it.'”
Before she even appeared on camera, Salley was already making waves in Paradise when her alleged Stagecoach history with costar Justin Glaze was revealed. Amid the drama, Lace Morris discovered Salley’s luggage — but Wells Adams claimed she didn’t get on the plane. When a handful of the season 8 women gathered at the bar, Wells told “the saga of Salley’s suitcase” — complete with a dramatic reenactment of what supposedly went down.
Salley eventually made it down to the beach, but she didn’t stay for very long, quitting during the October 11 episode. Though she previously denied the show’s version of events, the surgery robot operator told Us she “got a good laugh out of” Wells’ retelling.
“It was funny,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t have done anything differently if given the chance. “There [are] some bits and pieces that are true, but it is so exaggerated.”
The Bachelor Nation bartender, for his part, joked that his reenactment performance was Emmy-worthy. “[My wife, Sarah Hyland], was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that you’re able to [learn lines], you did a good job,'” he told Us ahead of the season finale.
As for whether he’d spoken to Salley since her brief stint on the show, the Best in Dough host asserted that they were friendly. “Listen, I think that she’s been a great sport about it. And also, I think that how dumb it was [and] how ridiculously we portrayed it … tipped off the audience to the validity of it all,” he told Us. “She might have been [offended]. I don’t know. I hope not. It was just so silly. I think it was one of the funniest things we’ve done on the show, if I’m being honest. And I don’t think that, I hope that she doesn’t think of it as mean-spirited.”
Wells even hinted that he gave Salley an open invitation to return to Paradise — but she didn’t take the bait. “She was like, ‘Hell no,'” he teased.
With reporting by Hannah Kahn
