Bachelor in Paradise‘s Amanda Stanton has shared new insight into her decision to end her engagement to Josh Murray after the show’s season 3 finale.
“There were signs along the way that I was, like, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ Not so much on the show … [but] there was one night on the show that I remember he, like, had a little temper and I remember going to sleep that night and I was, like, this isn’t going to work,” Stanton, 36, said on the Friday, October 23, episode of the “Comeback Era Podcast.”
She continued, “Then, the next day, it’s, like, OK, it’s a new day in Paradise … so we went on but when we got home before the season aired, I started seeing signs.”
Stanton, who rose to fame as a season 20 contestant on The Bachelor before getting engaged to Murray, 42, in 2016’s season 3 of Bachelor in Paradise, then recalled how she flagged her hesitations with the show’s crew. “I remember, I actually [went to] the executive producer and I was, like, ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it,’ and he was like, ‘You can call it off now,’” she rehashed. “[But] there was something that … I felt like I had to just make it … that’s so embarrassing to call it off before the season even airs.”
Stanton and Murray originally split in December that year before giving their relationship a second chance. They ultimately called time for good in February 2017.
When pushed by the podcast’s hosts, Caroline Lunny and Kayla Rae Reid, about what those red flags looked like, Stanton revealed more. “I don’t think he trusted me. I don’t know if it was certain things. It wasn’t a good … [a] dynamic I was looking for,” she explained. “And as a single mom, before I went on the show, I’m used to having my freedom and doing what I wanted so I can’t have somebody, like, try to take that away.”
Stanton shared two children, daughters Kinsley and Charlie, with her ex-husband, Nick Buonfiglio, before she appeared on Bachelor in Paradise, and is now also mom to daughter Rosie, 2, whom she shares with husband Michael Fogel.
For Murray’s part, the reality TV star has not publicly confirmed he is in a current relationship with anybody.
Stanton revealed in her 2019 memoir, Now Accepting Roses, that she knew prior to their break-up that “Josh was kind of controlling” while filming Bachelor in Paradise. She alleged that their relationship became harder to navigate when they returned to Los Angeles after filming.
“He would give me a hard time when I wanted to talk to my close friends,’” the book read. “I would even have to wait for him to go to the gym so I could call my best friend. Or even my mom. He didn’t approve of my childhood friends or my neighbors.’”
Stanton also provided a piece of romance advice to fans in light of her experience with Murray. “If he doesn’t turn into your prince, stop kissing him. Josh’s behavior was very frog-like,” she claimed.
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