Before she made her debut on Bachelor in Paradise season 8, Victoria Fuller fell for former Bachelor Chris Soules amid the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
“Chris and I met through a mutual friend, Kelsey Weier, who was also on the show — [Peter Weber‘s] final four shout-out. She set us up,” the model revealed during a September 2020 appearance on the “Viall Files” podcast. “She was talking about how there’s only three people from Iowa that have ever been on The Bachelor, and she was one of them and Chris was one of them. And I was like, ‘Oh, Chris is cute.’ … So she basically just like set it up and he ended up texting me within, like, five minutes of her giving him my number.”
Fuller continued: “I was like, ‘That’s so sweet.’ So, he immediately texted me and then we FaceTimed and we talked to each other on the phone and through text and then three weeks later, I was in Iowa [with him].”
The Virginia native was first linked to the season 19 Bachelor in April 2020, after fans began noticing that the pair were posting similar photos while in quarantine. One month later, Fuller confirmed the relationship — and her stay on Soules’ Iowa farm by posting a photo posing on his coffee table.
“Farm life,” she wrote via her Instagram Story at the time.
Though they frequently gushed about their relationship, Fuller confirmed four months later that they had called it quits. “I am just living my best life. We went a separate direction, but I, like, respect him so much and I think he’s an amazing man. I just think that right now, I’m in a different place than he is,” the reality TV personality told Nick Viall in September 2020. “I’m not moving to Iowa anytime soon, so I just want to focus on me. It’s been so much about other people this year, that I just really want to hone in on what I want to accomplish.”
At the time, Fuller added that their split was amicable and that they still spoke to each other frequently. “I still talk to him all the time. I think he’s amazing. We are a lot alike, but I just want to focus on myself right now,” she explained, before joking, “I’m not a farmer, but I know a lot about f—king corn now.”
Soules, for his part, described his ex as a “great person,” while talking about the breakup during a November 2020 appearance on Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti‘s “Almost Famous” podcast.
When asked about the reason they split, the farmer added that he prefers to keep his love life private: “Relationships are hard enough, you know? Some things are best left unsaid.”
Keep scrolling to see the complete timeline of Fuller and Soules’ romance: