Riley Christian and Maurissa Gunn are the latest Bachelor Nation couple to bite the dust. The pair’s breakup was confirmed on Jan. 24, just three months after their proposal aired on Bachelor in Paradise.
“We have decided to go our separate ways. Never did we imagine this, but we’ve come to a point where we both need to work on ourselves,” Riley and Maurissa told People in a joint statement. “We’ve appreciated everyone’s love and support so far throughout our journey and we just ask that you please respect our privacy as we navigate through this.”
Confirmation of the split comes after fans of Bachelor in Paradise noticed that Maurissa removed recent photos with Christian from her Instagram profile. She also shared a video in which she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring and wrote the cryptic quote, “All that glitters is not gold.”
It looked like it was going to be an epic love story for Riley and Maurissa, who met on season 7 of Bachelor in Paradise during summer 2022. They were one of three couples to get engaged at the end of the show, as Maurissa accepted Riley’s proposal on the beach in Mexico. When the finale aired in October, Maurissa and Riley were still happily in love, and did various interviews together where they gushed about their relationship.
The two were all over each other’s social media pages in the months that followed, and they even posted photos in matching Christmas pajamas together. Shortly after the holidays, though, there were hints of trouble. Maurissa basically wiped Riley from her entire main Instagram feed. Plus, she began posting cryptic messages on her Instagram Story, leading fans to believe that she and Riley had broken up. Riley and Maurissa didn’t appear on each other’s social media pages anytime after the holidays, either .
In addition to Riley and Maurissa, the two other couples who got engaged on season 7 of Paradise were Mari Pepin/Kenny Braasch and Joe Amabile/Serena Pitt. Two additional couples broke up on the show, but wound up getting back together after filming (Becca Kufrin/Thomas Jacobs and Noah Erb/Abigail Heringer). As of now, these four couples are all still together.
Paradise has proven to work out well for a number of Bachelor Nation couples over the years. While there have been plenty of breakups from the show, there are also some success stories. Jade Roper and Tanner Tolbert are still happily married and now have three kids after meeting on BIP. Other BIP couples include Ashley Iaconetti/Jared Haibon, Caelynn Miller-Keyes/Dean Unglert, Dylan Barbour/Hannah Godwin and more.