Bachelorette Hannah Brown Would Tell Jed Wyatt's Ex Haley Stevens 'Sorry' for How He Handled the Show
Hannah Brown has a message for the person who was at the center of her shocking Bachelorette breakup with Jed Wyatt.
During Tuesday night’s finale, Brown, 24, revealed she had called off her engagement with Wyatt, 25, after PEOPLE broke the news in June that the songwriter had been in a relationship with Haley Stevens prior to the show. Now that the dust has settled, Brown has nothing but kind words to share about Stevens, 26.
“I would tell Haley that I’m sorry that this happened to her as well,” Brown, 24, tells PEOPLE Now. “I mean, I think that Jed realizes you have to be very careful about the words that you choose to say to someone and the way that you play with somebody’s feelings, and I’m sorry that she had that happen to her and she was heartbroken as well. So, I hope she knows her worth, and it’s what she deserves, too.”
Stevens, who performs with best friend Julia Kate Snow as the duo Sweet Leah, began dating Wyatt, also a musician, in November 2018 after meeting at a music venue. When he was cast for the show, he assured her it was only for his music career and told Stevens he loved her multiple times just before leaving.
“He was always so reassuring,” Stevens told PEOPLE in June. “He told me the show was just an obstacle and we’d be stronger on the other side because of it.”
However, after Wyatt returned home, Stevens was blindsided when he made no effort to get in touch with her. Unbeknownst to her, Wyatt was then engaged to Brown, whom he lied to about the nature of his relationship with Stevens.
RELATED: The Bachelorette‘s Jed Wyatt’s Ex Haley Stevens Says She’s ‘Heartbroken’ for Hannah Brown
Brown ultimately found out the scope of Wyatt’s dishonesty when Stevens spoke exclusively to PEOPLE last month. In her cover story with PEOPLE, Brown said that the revelation “felt like a sucker punch.”
Stevens, meanwhile, said she “thought about Hannah every single day” and called the situation “heartbreaking” for the Alabama native.
“And it makes me sad that this made her sad,” Stevens told PEOPLE. “I’ve had the opportunity to take ownership for what I did wrong. I should have had a higher standard for the things I wanted. And if I had known this would go so far, I would have said, this is unacceptable. This was supposed to be Hannah’s love story.”
“I don’t know if there is anyone in the country who can sympathize with her like I can,” she added. “I know how it feels to be blindsided. And I will never be in that situation again.”
Brown admitted to PEOPLE that once the cameras stopped rolling, she and Wyatt had their fair share of problems, even before Stevens’ interview permanently ended the engagement.
“It was hard right off the bat,” she explained. “We loved each other, but it wasn’t as perfect as I thought it would be.”
Two days after the proposal, Wyatt first mentioned to Brown there had been another girl in his life, but assured her it was nothing serious. However, Brown’s reservations continued, and five weeks later, the final bombshell dropped with the news of Stevens and Wyatt’s relationship.
“It was really embarrassing to have to send an article to my fiancé and circle parts and ask if they were true. It was rough,” Brown explained.
Ultimately, Brown knew she had to end things. “I don’t think the struggles are uncommon,” she said. “But it wasn’t just what everybody knows about the PEOPLE article that made it hard.”
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