Monica sent LIB fans wild last week by appearing to confirm her relationship with Ben by posting a series of Instagram videos of them enjoying a holiday together in Florida.
In what seemed to be a telling additon, she added the hashtags #loveisblind #loveisblindnetflix #season8 #netflix #datenight #wifeswap #miami #florida #dinner #dinneranddrinks to her latest video, which shows her and Ben watching a Love is Blind clip together.
Fans immediately thought this was confirmation that the pair are now an item - especially since Monica said recently in a podcast that herself and Ben, and their respective exes Joey Leveille and Sara Carton, were actually in a love square in the pods but this wasn’t really shown on the final edit of the show. Appearing on the Love to See it podcast on Friday March 22, she said: “Ben was my number one for a while and it was between Ben and Joey towards the end.”
But, Ben has officially dashed the hopes of LIB fans and romantics everywhere by confirming today, (Tuesday April 15), that the pair are nothing more than friends. Ben was a guest on the Girl Please podcast, and the hosts wasted no time in asking him if he and Monica were now dating, as her recent Instagram posts would suggest. “No,” the reality star simply said - leading to noises of shock and disappointment from the presenters.
He added that they are just mates. “People have friendships out of these shows and usually you want to keep the big group together as much as possible, but people tend to gravitate toward other people, and so I would say Monica is probably one of my closest friends from the cast.”
Ackowledging that Monica’s recent posts were somewhat misleading about the nature of the pair’s relationship, he went on: “We’re not intentionally trolling, just having fun making content together and letting the world take it as they want.”
The reality star it had been a mutual deicison to post the videos. He said: “Obviously there is chemistry there with her and I and so it’s been more that the videos just flow super easily.” He also admitted that they thought it would be “fun” to see how fans reacted to their content.
Ben also confirmed that he, Monica, Sara and Joey were indeed in a love square in the initial stages of the Love is Blind process, but this was not shown on-screen. He also shared that the four of them were aware of their situation, and Joey had asked him if he wanted to know who his favourite out of Monica and Sara was before they each proposed but he said no, not wanting to fuel potential competitiveness.
As fans will know, it all worked out fine anyway, (or at least at that point), because Joey proposed to Monica while Ben proposed to Sara. Neither of the couples said ‘I do’ on their wedding day though - and since the show aired, there have been many rumours swirling that Joey and Sara are now dating, seemingly started by Monica.
Ben had not spoken out on the rumours - until now. When asked by the Girl Please podcast hosts if he was surprised to hear the two may now be romantically involved, he said: “No, it really doesn’t. Honestly, the kind of after filming festivities and parties and things . . . we all were good friends and I just knew they were very similar. It was one of those where I thought they were almost too similar, where I couldn’t see them dating. After everthing has come out, that I had no clue about, it makes a lot more sense.”
He also went on to reveal that it was Monica who told him that Sara and Joey are allegedly dating - and after it got back to Joey he asked to speak to him on the phone. It appears the pair did have that phone conversation, and he said they are “still in touch” now.
When asked about his relationship status, Ben said he is single but he hasn’t been “officially looking for the love of [his] life”. When probed further about if he saw the potential of anything romantic developing with Monica in future, he said: “I’m not ruling anything out, she’s a great person but we have just grown this friendship so solidly. I don’t know if I see it going anywhere further, at least in the near future. For right now, we’re just enjoying each other’s company.”
He later said: “The amount of people that have been shipping our relationship has been awesome which has made me be like ‘Monica, should we actually give this a go? There’s a lot of people that are liking this.” He also said he would be open to going on another dating show in the future.
Joey has previously responded to the claims he is dating Sara - but his response was somewhat confusing. He told Us Weekly back in March: “In February, Sara and I had a conversation, ‘Hey, we have this great friendship and support. Is this some type of potential for us in the future?’ We had a good, healthy conversation. Ultimately, we decided, no, we’re not gonna pursue dating at this time. There’s definitely interest there. I’m not gonna lie about that aspect, but we decided — and still have decided — we’re not pursuing dating in this capacity at this time.”
However, later in the same interview, he called Sara and “incredible person” and seemed to give a conflicting view on the state of their relationship. He then said: “It’s just confusing to Sara and I because we haven’t even come to a conclusion of whether we’re at the capacity to date, but Monica has.”
Sara didn’t comment publicly on the dating rumours for a while, but she did eventually break her silence. When asked what was going on with Joey on the After Curfew podcast on Wednesday (April 9), and specifically if the pair were in a “situationship, fling or friends” Sara said: “We don’t even know ourselves, but people are just saying secretly dating when we haven’t established that.”
She also acknowledged that there is a “connection” and “interest” between the pair, but later said they were in a “grey area” and had decided to be “just friends” because it’s “not the time” to pursue anything more between them when there’s so much public attention on them.
So, there is hope for both Ben and Monica and Joey and Sara yet, it seems. We’ll bring you any further news about both couples that emerges.
*Love is Blind season 8 is available to watch on Netflix now.
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