Michelle Young and Nayte Olukoya’s Split: Everything They’ve Said

Bachelor Nation is slowly getting more insight into Michelle Young and Nayte Olukoya’s decision to call off their engagement.

After she looked for love on Matt James’ season of The Bachelor, ABC picked the teacher to lead season 18 of The Bachelorette. During the December 2021 finale, fans watched Young accept a proposal from her first impression rose winner, Olukoya. The twosome subsequently planned to move to her native Minnesota and told Us Weekly that they hoped to wed in the “near future.”

“There’s just so many different layers of this process with the cameras and production, and it’s a very quick timeline. I was able to get the answers that I needed and once I was able to get those answers, my family really trusted me with that,” Young told Us in December 2021 of knowing Olukoya was The One. “And they also trust that one conversation — in this high-pressure moment — isn’t always going to necessarily point to somebody’s character. And so, they have welcomed Nayte with open arms and are so happy to have [him be] part of the family.”

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Two months later, the pair confirmed to Us that he hadn’t made the move yet.

“We’re trying to be as smart as possible. We’re looking at different options. We’re definitely feeling it all out,” the Texas resident told Us in February 2022.

Young added at the time: “We like to make sure that we’re always making very calculated decisions, we’re always looking at all of our options. Yeah, it’ll happen.”

That April, the then-couple hadn’t made any more progress and were considering their romance long-distance.

“If we’re not hanging out, we’re texting [or] FaceTiming. We do a lot of movie nights like over FaceTime or Zoom. We’ve been making it work,” Young told Us. “But, he’s been in Minnesota for a little bit now so it’s been nice.”

Olukoya noted: “When we are together, we just spend time together, like, nonstop so it’s nice.”

It was less than two months later that they announced their breakup.

“I’m struggling to say that Nayte and I will be going out separate ways but I stand with him in knowing the heaviness that is present in both our hearts as this relationship has been very real for us,” Young wrote on June 17 via Instagram Stories. “To you, Nayte, you quickly became my best friend and the love I have for you is incredibly strong. I will never stop wanting to see you succeed.”

She continued: “I will always acknowledge and appreciate the adventures, support and growth both Nayte and this experience have brought me. At the same time, I’m deeply hurting and will need time and space to work through this heartbreak.”

Olukoya echoed her words. “Michelle and I are going to move forward separately. Hearts are heavy, emotions are high and we are dealing with this the best way we can,” he wrote. “When we both started this journey, we were looking for our soulmates. Our forever. Our best friends. However, as we grow and learn, we also really that sometimes somebody that you hold dear to your heart isn’t somebody you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with.”

Scroll through for more on their split:

Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Nayte Denies Cheating

On June 25, Olukoya took to Instagram to deny allegations that he was unfaithful. “I didn’t cheat,” he wrote. “Yes, I like to hang out with my guys. As she likes to hang out with her girls. Nothing wrong with that. If anything, super healthy. We are social people. Not everyone who goes to bars are cheaters.” 

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‘No One to Blame’

“Not every breakup needs to have someone to blame. Yes, many of you seem to paint me as a red flag/ f—k boy … But I’m actually a decent guy, and I only want to continue getting better,” he wrote. “As we should all want for ourselves.” 

Credit: Courtesy of Michelle Young/Instagram

Why Nayte Didn’t Move to Minnesota

“Plans changed as we decided there was no need to rush anything and get to know each other on a deeper level before taking the leap of living together,” he said in June. “There’s no rush in life. There’s no rule book or timeline on how to go about your relationship. We believed that since the love was there, everything would fall into place naturally and in its own time. … We tried. It didn’t work. We’re sad about it. We all grieve different.”

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Michelle Didn’t Expect Split

“I will say this is not something that I foresaw and I’ll leave it there,” Young said on “Almost Famous” on July 5, playing coy.

Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Michelle Wants to Donate House Down Payment

The network gave the twosome $200,000 to buy their first house at the December 2021 finale. Young said in July that she was “crying on the phone with one of the producers” as fans asked questions about the money. 

“That was gifted to both of us, and I think that’s something that is going to be decided how that’s going to be utilized, going forward,” she said. “For me, personally, [I] haven’t officially decided but I kind of have started putting some different things in place to give back, you know, to build an organization or just promote the change that I’ve been talking about and I think that’d be something that I’d feel really good about.”

Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

How Michelle Is Coping After Breakup

Young said in July that she has good and bad days, noting she’s leaning on her inner circle and former Bachelorettes for support.

“Breakups suck. Breakups are awful,” she admitted. “They hurt, right? And I think what’s so difficult is that it sometimes feels like it’s not in your control. You wake up and you some days you just feel like, ‘OK, I just have to have time pass … give it time,’ but like, you can’t always speed up that time. You can’t always speed up healing, you can put in the work, but you can’t always speed it up. But it is this situation where I’m like, ‘This is not how the story ends for me.’ Where I’m at right now emotionally, mentally, like, how my heart feels — this is not how the story ends and I deserve to really make it to that point where I get those things.”

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The Reality of Their ‘Ups and Downs’

“I miss the Michelle that I fell in love with. I’m not sure I miss the Michelle I broke up with.” Nayte said during a September episode of the “Viall Files”  podcast — his first interview since the split. 

“Our relationship was tough. There’s lots of ups and downs, lots of arguments, lots of fights, and just not really clicking, not really seeing eye to eye,” he revealed to host Nick Viall. “It was rocky. … Don’t get me wrong, we had amazing moments in between rockiness, but it was rocky.”

The Canada native went on to explain that the two called it quits after spending time at Wango Tango in June 2022, noting he felt “so lost, so confused” after the pair found themselves arguing often. 

“Long story short, the weekend was not a good weekend. Her and I are up late having very deep conversations. I think the day before I was having very deep conversations with her friends too, because her friends weren’t having a good time either. It was just a bad weekend for everybody,” he recalled of their getaway. 

While the following weekend was the CMA Awards, the reality star revealed that he “didn’t feel comfortable” attending with Michelle so he broke up with over the phone, admitting it “was a dick move.”

Nayte also shared that while the “beginning of that relationship was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced,”  the twosome eventually just “stopped clicking.”

He added, I fell in love with this woman, and then, like, I’m not saying that she changed into, like, this terrible person, but it just wasn’t the same really quick — after everything was said and done, after the engagement, after we started going into just the everyday motion of [our] lives and not a televised relationship, but, like, a real relationship. Things just started to shift. … And I was so freaked out.”

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‘You Think You Know Someone’

Young appeared to weigh in on her ex’s bombshell “Viall File” interview while attending the September 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. “It’s been really interesting,” she told Celeb Secrets on the red carpet of how she’s coping post-split. “You know, you go through something and you think you know someone. … There’s just always so much that is constantly happening or [things] trying to resurface. All I can do, truly, is [remember] I know how things went down. I know the other person knows what went down, and I can stay true to myself and really that’s all that I can do.”

While working through the public breakup was “hard,” the teacher said she was trying to focus on “healing” and wanted to “block out all the noise.” She continued: “Everyone thinks that they know what happen. … My mental well-being is not dependent on people other than myself.”

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Michelle’s Red Table Reflection

During her appearance on the December 5 episode of Red Table Talk, the Minnesota native opened up about how her public romance didn’t pan out like she expected — and what she wants from a relationship in the future.

“So I came into reality TV falling in love in the public eye. And it didn’t work out. It was best that it didn’t work out, but now that I’m healing and going on that journey, how do I move on and find a way to date now that I am in the public eye?” she said at the time. “I want a relationship where somebody doesn’t know who I am. In the day of social media, in the day of dating apps, you know, going to the club, I don’t want to meet my forever person at the club. That’s not where I’m gonna meet him. So how do I do that? Where do I search for somebody organically where they don’t know who I am?”

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Michelle Is Officially “Healed”

In December 2022, the former Bachelorette shared that she was “healed” following her split from her ex-fiancé.

“I really did the work early on, and it’s a lot when so much is going on outside of you,” she exclusively shared to Life & Style at the time. “You have to heal otherwise, you are going to constantly — like, your emotions depend on what is happening.”