It took almost two years, but Jenna Cooper has finally cleared her name. So much Bachelor drama has happened since her season of Bachelor In Paradise, which resulted in her brief engagement to Jordan Kimball, that you may have forgotten the scandal that rocked Bachelor Nation to its core. In short, screenshots of text messages appeared to show Jenna talking to an alleged "sugar daddy."
In the messages, Jenna claimed her relationship with Jordan was fake, much to the surprise of Jordan. This story, reported by Reality Steve, subsequently ended Jenna and Jordan's engagement. Jenna has always maintained her innocence, and finally, with the help of lawyers, gathered enough evidence to convince Reality Steve to delete the original story and issue an apology.
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Reality Steve is the main source of Bachelor fans' spoilers, and he's become a trusted name in the behind-the-scenes of the franchise. On a podcast recorded with Jenna released on Thursday, the host says the original story was "the biggest misstep" he's ever had.
On the podcast, Jenna explains that her lawyers had a forensic team extract all of her text messages from her phone and search for the messages she allegedly sent, which includes texts like "Me and Jordan aren't together for real...He means nothing to me and never has."
She says two different services found no evidence of the screenshotted texts on her phone, proving they were faked. Furthermore, once she took this information to Reality Steve, the two pieced together information that identified the source of the misinformation campaign as at last two different women who they opted not to name.
Jenna is careful not to accuse Jordan of being involved in fabricating the texts in the podcast since much of the language in them was taken from her messages with her ex-fiancée. She still takes issue with how he handled the scandal — something Jordan won't apologize for.
"Everyone wants the public apology from me, right? Well, my character was attacked as I tried to help and the person I tried to help said I did it," he tweeted on Thursday, referring to the fact that Jenna initially blamed Jordan for the fabricated texts when the scandal first broke. "It’s very unfortunate how this all went down. Every step of it, however we since, have both become happier and I wish us all the best."
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Everyone wants the public apology from me, right? Well my character was attacked as I tried to help and the person I tried to help said I did it. It’s very unfortunate how this all went down. Every step of it, however we since, have both become happier and I wish us all the best.
— Jordan Kimball (@jordan__kimball) April 16, 2020
Jenna recently announced that she is pregnant with her first child. She revealed she was dating Raleigh, NC real estate broker Karl Hudson IV in January.
Listen to her tell-all below.
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