Becca Kufrin Just Dismissed Rumors That She & Garrett Split Over Politics

Becca Kufrin and her ex Garret Yrigoyen may have differing political beliefs, but that wasn't the reason the pair recently decided to end their engagement. After an Instagram commenter implied that the former Bachelorette's support for Joe Biden was the reason for the breakup, Becca dismissed rumors that she and Garrett broke up due to their political differences. The Bachelor Happy Hour co-host shared a post endorsing Biden in the 2020 presidential election on Oct. 12, posing in a homemade t-shirt that proclaimed she was "Biden My Time" until he could take office.

In the comments, an Instagram user posited that Becca's support of the former vice president was "the real reason [Garrett] left," adding that they don't blame him" for doing so. "He could do so much better with a level headed woman," they continued. Becca fired back with a succinct response that implied that their differing beliefs had nothing to do with their split, writing, "It's a shame this is the sentiment that people resort to." (Becca was apparently anticipating some negative comments on her post, as she also told people who disagreed to "just simply tap 'unfollow.'")

Becca and Garrett — who met and got engaged on the 2018 season of The Bachelorette — announced in August that they had decided to end their engagement after two years. While neither one of them have divulged too many details about the split, Becca told Bachelor Happy Hour listeners that she and Garrett "came to this decision after many conversations. It wasn’t just something we just arrived at one night. ... We realized that we still have so much love and kindness and compassion in our hearts for the other person, but sometimes people’s paths just go different ways."

Though she stated at the time that Garrett's controversial "Thin Blue Line" Instagram post wasn't the catalyst for their split, Becca and Garrett's differing views have played a prominent role in their romance. When her season of The Bachelorette was still airing, fans discovered that Garrett had liked homophobic, transphobic and racist social media posts on Instagram; he issued a public apology for his social media activity and subsequently wiped his account. At the time, Becca defended Garrett, telling Entertainment Tonight in a May 2018 interview, "People say and do certain things. I've done things in the past that I'm sure it wasn't the best thing. I can't fault anyone for what they believe, and who's to say that anything that anyone likes [online] is truly what they believe."

Then in June 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd's death and amid ongoing protests against police brutality, the issue came up again when Garrett supported the Thin Blue Line on Instagram — which is associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement — sparking a great deal of criticism from fans and fellow members of Bachelor Nation. Becca, who publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement, originally defended her then-fiancé on the June 9 episode of Bachelor Happy Hour. "Garrett is my fiancé and I love him and to his core, I believe that he is a good person. What he posted … I don’t align with and I don’t agree with," she told co-host Rachel Lindsay at the time. "I don’t think he meant it in a malicious way. I do think it was tone deaf and it was the wrong time and message and sentiment."

A week later, Becca admitted that the entire situation was forcing her to reconsider her relationship with Garrett. "For those who are curious about my relationship with Garrett at this point, all I can say right now is I don’t know,” Becca said at the time. "It’s something that we are trying to work through and discuss and do work on at home at this time and that’s where the work will remain and that’s really the best can give you at this point."

Still, Becca made it clear in the aftermath of their split that there was more involved than just politics. "It wasn't based solely off one Instagram post or somebody else's opinions or comments," Becca insisted on the Aug. 31 episode of Bachelor Happy Hour. "There's much more to it. To any relationship, there's a lot of layers."

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