As His Bachelor: Greatest Seasons Episode Airs, Ben Higgins Is Moving On

Bachelor Nation will be reliving Ben Higgins' season on June 22 thanks to his episode of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! But after watching him propose to Lauren Bushnell again, we should probably remind you that Ben Higgins is set to marry his fiancée Jessica Clarke. The two got engaged at the end of March after over a year of dating, so what you're about to watch on The Greatest Seasons — Ever! isn't just history, it's ancient history.

Lauren and Ben broke up in May 2017, and Lauren has since married country star Chris Lane. As for Ben, he started talking to blogger Jessica in late 2018 after sliding into her Instagram DMs. E! News reported that he'd been in her hometown of Nashville scrolling through pictures taken at the hockey game when he came across a photo of Jessica in the arena with her dad. "I saw this picture and I said, 'Holy cow. This girl is gorgeous,'" E! News reported that he'd said on his Almost Famous podcast. "I said something along the lines of, 'Don't ask too much about how I saw your profile. I can explain later but if you're single, please message back." 

She did, and the duo went public with their relationship in February 2019. At the time, Entertainment Tonight reported that Jessica was 23, a recent graduate, and had a job selling LED lighting. Everything changed for her when Ben went public with their romance. She suddenly got an influx of followers, and she decided she wanted to do something with her new platform. So she started a blog called Coffee Shop Talks where she shares her story with others and listens to their stories as well. "Coffee Shop Talks is a place for you to be you and to feel loved. So come to this page, know that you are seen and accepted," she wrote on her blog's about page.

Jessica and Ben initially dated long distance, with her in Nashville and him back in his hometown of Denver for the first year. The couple told the Live Original blog in a Q&A, "Faith is foundational. Our relationship wouldn't work or make sense without our faith being front and center." They added, "Starting to get to know someone by dating long distance means that everything must be intentional. We never have been afraid to dig deeper into our beliefs from the get-go and it's led to a strong foundation that now we've been able to build on and really have fun with."

After so many months doing the long distance thing, they've been spending more time together lately thanks to the recent stay-at-home orders. Ben told Entertainment Tonight that he even proposed in the backyard of Jessica's family home instead of in Central Park as he'd originally planned.

"This is exactly how I would have wanted it to be," Jessica told the outlet. "Central Park would have been magical and special in its own way. But it's really cool that we just got to be together last night and not really have to talk to anyone else but my family. It was great. It was perfect. I couldn't imagine it a better way."

Ben tweeted that he was kind of dreading the replay of his season, and watching footage of old relationships sounds like a nightmare, so that's pretty understandable.

After getting engaged, he told Entertainment Tonight that he's put that former romance behind him and just wants to focus on building a future with Jessica. "It's time for a new chapter, and I think that excites me. It's a chapter for me to have a lot of peace when it comes to romantic love, a lot of confidence in our partnership and who we are to each other, and kind of to start a chapter of no more tears and no more heartbreak," he said, adding, "I'm not going to break this girl's heart and I know she's not going to break mine. It's time to start a new, more confident journey forward."

And that journey only has a minor speed bump of Ben's re-televised relationships to endure first.