What Happened To Sara And Ben After Those TikTok Allegations On 'Love Is Blind' Season 8?
The eighth season of Love Is Blind has been anything but smooth sailing for the majority of couples. While Ben Mezzenga and Sara Carton’s romance seemed to be idyllic from the start, some major disagreements regarding politics and religion threatened to derail them. And when one of Ben’s exes started sharing her thoughts about him on social media, Sara was forced to question the relationship all over again. Here’s what you need to know about those TikTok allegations against Ben, and whether Ben and Sara made it down the aisle on Love Is Blind season 8.
What did Ben’s ex say about him?
While Love Is Blind season 8 was filming, a content creator named Andra Berghoff shared videos regarding her past relationship with one of the contestants, as reported by The Tab. Berghoff revealed that Ben taught her to never 'trust men,' and a number of other women allegedly shared their own accounts of interactions with the reality TV contestant, the outlet reported.
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After learning who had been cast in season 8, Berghoff shared a TikTok saying (via Vulture), 'I’m not sure how much I can say about it, but I am going to say that I am so exhausted and tired of society rewarding shitty men who treat women terribly and manipulate and lie all the time.' She continued, 'I know this is a vast overreaction and unfortunately, probably for legal reasons, I shouldn’t say exactly who it is, but I will not be watching the Minneapolis season.' In another video, Berghoff claimed that the person in question 'should not be on the show, one, because he’s not on it for the right reasons, and two, because he’s just a terrible person,' Vulture reported.
In episode 9, Sara confronted Ben about the TikTok, and he revealed he’d already watched the video, saying, 'I think she is referencing me.' 'I saw this come out, and I’m like, "Screw this,"' he explained. 'I don’t want to give her any ability to do anything with me, or if she decides to release my name or anything. I don’t want to give her control over that, so I blocked her.' He also revealed that Berghoff had already blocked him on TikTok. Ben said he hadn’t 'talked to her in over four years,' and he blocked her because he was 'so uncertain to what else she’s going to try and say.'
Perhaps Ben’s biggest claim about the TikTok allegations was that Berghoff was 'making up stuff...how I manipulated her and did all these different things.' He claimed she was 'overreacting'. According to Ben, he met Berghoff on Tinder four years earlier, but they 'never hooked up' and 'it was a short amount of time'. 'I just honestly don’t remember,' he explained, although he did recall ghosting her.
Understandably, Sara wasn’t a huge fan of Ben’s amnesia regarding the situation, and she pressed him about it, asking, 'Why was she crying if you just ghosted her?' He responded saying he didn’t know if they’d ever spoken in the four years since, saying, 'But I would’t be surprised if there was a DM or something here and there.'
Sara has since addressed her feelings about the allegations.
Speaking to Us Weekly, Sara recounted discovering the TikTok involving her fiancé. 'I’m scrolling, I see a TikTok come through on a Love Is Blind girls’ group chat,' she told the outlet. 'At this point, it’s been posted for a couple hours and there were hundreds of comments tagging Ben specifically. I was really confused because she never specifically said his name, but I’m like, "How are all these people pinpointing that it’s him? And how do all these people know who he is?"'
Sara explained, 'She didn’t say anything specific other than him treating girls shitty—and that can be taken in so many ways.' While Ben claimed not to remember what had happened with his ex, Sara wanted to extricate the truth from him. 'He was protecting himself and I felt bad that he was in this situation,' she told the outlet. 'I thought, "I’m not going to dismiss her with what she says, but I fell in love with you today—not four years ago." And I believe people can change and evolve.'
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sara confirmed that she 'wasn’t going to dismiss...or disregard' the TikTok, but she 'felt very conflicted.' 'I didn’t want to end the relationship just because of this one thing when we were so happy,' she told the outlet. 'It wouldn’t feel right to me to just immediately drop it.'
Sara also candidly told the publication that she 'didn’t like his answers,' but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. '[A]t the time, it was enough for me to think, "It was four years ago. Hopefully that was the truth. I’m going to trust his word,"' the oncology nurse explained. 'But that’s when I told him, "If there’s anything else that comes out of this that you’re not telling me, I can’t trust you."'
Sara appreciated Ben’s honesty and vulnerability.
Viewers witnessed several awkward conversations between Sara and Ben, both in the pods and in the real world. Early on, Sara asked Ben for his opinion on Black Lives Matter and questioned whether he voted in the election. Despite not necessarily aligning on the topics, Sara told Us Weekly she appreciated that Ben 'was never backing down out of these conversations—obviously, they are uncomfortable sometimes.' She continued, 'And also for him to be vulnerable enough to say he hasn’t really thought about something or that he hasn’t voted or whatever, like, at least he told me that and he’s being vulnerable with me in that setting.'
By the start of episode 10, it seemed as though Sara and Ben had gotten over the shock of seeing the TikTok and were moving forward together. However, in episode 11, the pair had a serious discussion about Ben’s church, with Sara revealing she’d listened to a service about sexual identity. She was particularly concerned by some of the 'traditional views' discussed during the service, and was surprised Ben didn’t know the organization’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues. In the pods, Sara shared that her sister Lisa is gay, and she wanted to ensure any future partner was accepting of that.
'I’m glad I did listen to the service,' she told Ben. 'They were talking about, as a parent, what would you do if your child came up to you, they were 12, 13, saying, "Oh, I feel like I’m a boy, but in a girl’s body."' Sara continued, 'What he said was, like, "God made us who we are, and...desires are different than actions."' After Sara said she didn’t agree with the church’s sentiments, Ben concurred and said he didn’t either. But when Sara asked Ben if he’d consider exploring different churches with her, he said he would, but also defended his own, saying it was unreasonable to expect to agree with every view any religious organization has.
Sara challenged some of Ben’s responses regarding his church, and expressed concern regarding their future, particularly if differences of opinion arose in this area. 'I want everyone to be loved for who they are,' she told him. 'That’s what makes the world so beautiful, is the diversity.' Ben appeared to quickly tire of the topic, telling Sara that the frequency with which the topic came up in conversation 'minimizes the other values that we see and relate about each other.'
Rumors suggest Ben and Sara didn’t tie the knot.
Sara and Ben were the first couple to have their wedding shown on Love Is Blind season 8, with episode 12 ending right before either had the chance to say 'I do'. While it’s still unclear whether they got married, Cosmopolitan UK pointed to a hint in Sara’s interview with Entertainment Weekly, in which she was asked whether Ben had voted in the most recent election. 'I don’t know if he did, haven’t asked,' she told the outlet, which would be a strange response if the pair did, in fact, get married.
Fans can see the remainder of the couple’s wedding play out in the Love Is Blind season 8 finale, which drops on March 7 on Netflix.
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