The happily married couple playful ribbed their pal for his initial uncertainty about their romance.
Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon have a bone to pick with Nick Viall. Viewers got to relive the fan-favorite couple's romantic history with their appearance on season 8 of Bachelor in Paradise, and, as fans know, it wasn't always easy for the pair.
Though they're married with a baby today, when they dated on season 3 of the series, Nick told a sobbing Ashley that she would "never be with Jared." Now, the couple said in an interview with ET, Nick "has flipped that scene upside down" and claimed credit for their successful relationship.
While Nick, who's currently a dating advice author and podcaster, wrote on Instagram in 2018 that he was "way off" about his initial take on the romance, he apparently says something different today.
"Truthfully, I do subscribe to this theory, which he was like, 'I was being a good friend and telling Ashley exactly what she needed to hear. Jared as well needed to hear that, 'Hey, listen, it's not going to happen. You guys need to move on because once you move on you'll realize that you need to be together,'" Jared said. "So he was like, 'Actually, I'm the one that brought you guys closer together.'"
"This is how he interprets it, which I see the point and I respect it and I probably would have told a friend the exact same thing. He was being a good friend," Ashley added. "That being said, he truly believed in his heart of hearts that Jared had zero interest and he was so wrong about that. That's why I was so upset with him in the moment. Like, 'I can't believe that you, probably my best friend out here, has no idea that Jared truly is sending me mixed signals.'"
Regardless of what it took to get there, Ashley and Jared are happy and in love today. The couple tied the knot in 2019 and welcomed their son, Dawson, in January.
"Our life is true chaos," Ashley told ET. "It's funny because we were still, like, very optimistic about it calming down, but I don't know why. We keep saying... 'It's going to be so much better once we're over this week. After that week, after that event's done, it's going to be so much better. We're going to really be able to have more time to enjoy [everything].' It hasn't come yet. But we have been optimistic that it will come for about eight months now."
Amid the chaos, Jared and Ashley could not be more enamored with their baby boy.
"He's the best," Jared gushed, with the proud mom adding that the tot "is so cute and so funny."
"It's our favorite stage with him right now. It's nice that he can sit up nicely on the floor and play with toys on his own for a little while. He's just very interactive," Ashley said. "He thinks that we're pretty fun now... We're kind of his favorite people in the world, which is pretty awesome."
Outside of parenting, Jared and Ashley are busy with their restaurant, Audrey's Coffee House & Lounge, and their other many ventures.
"Owning a business, we've actually ended up moving a couple times in the past eight to nice months -- long story there -- and of course with Dawson, and then everything else we do with podcasting, and social media, and brand partnerships, and traveling, and entertainment business, and still trying to do that grind [is busy]," Jared said. "... We miss a routine of some sort. There is no routine right now. Every day is something different, which is fun, but also quite exhausting and hard because it's like there's no time where we can be like, 'OK, this is the time where her and I can do something.'"
Even so, everything keeping the couple busy are "all good things, all amazing things" for which, Ashley said, they're "grateful every day."
Season 8 of Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays and Tuesdays on ABC. Follow along with ET's coverage of the show to stay up-to-date on all the drama on the beach.
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