Ivan Hall has gone ahead and solved the most pressing Bachelorette mystery of Season 16.
On Tuesday night’s finale, Tayshia Adams surprised viewers not just by sending Ivan home…
… but for sending him home due to religious worrries.
“This past week, we’ve talked about some important subjects… There are some things that kind of posed concern,” Adams said on camera, elaborating in cryptic fashion as follows:
“I wish I could say that there were a lot of red flags prior to this week. And there haven’t been.
“It’s just like, at the end of the day, religion’s part of my morals and my beliefs.”
Ivan said he totally understood, even though viewers were left totally in the dark.
“We found out a lot of stuff about each other and I was definitely struggling with bringing it up, because all the girls I have dated in the past, it never ended because of religion or anything,” replied the handsome suitor.
“But I know that’s something that’s important to you and I do apologize for that and I wish I did bring it up a little sooner.
“That is the roadblock for the two of us.”
Hall and Adams then said their farewells, with the former admitting to the camera that he knew “this thing could really just be the bomb that just explodes everything here.”
Again, viewers were left to wonder… what is he talking about?!?
Now, however, we know.
On PodcastOne’s Off The Vine podcast on Wednesday, December 23, Ivan explained that the fantasy suite provided the pair with its only opportunity to have hours of uninterrupted time to discuss raising children and other life priorities.
It turns out, religion got brought up then, as well.
“I knew we were going to have to talk about it eventually, because I could tell she was at least, that she was Christian, but we hadn’t talked about it in the past,” Ivan said in this interview, adding:
“But she said maybe once to me that she relied on her faith a lot.”
Tayshia didn’t discuss thisi aspect of her personality much on air.
But Hall went on to say it’s crucial to who she is.
Said Ivan on the podcast:
“That’s how it came up, Tayshia was like, ‘So what do you think about raising kids with religion and what not?’ And that’s when we dove into it. And I kind of explained to Tayshia, ‘Listen, I’m agnostic.
“‘A lot of people confuse it for being atheist. Atheist is not what I am.'”
The aeronautical engineer continued:
“When she starts asking me my beliefs like, ‘Is there heaven or is there a hell?’ that kind of stuff, I’m going to be like, ‘Yeah, my answer is going to be different than yours because I’m going to tell our kids I don’t know what there is.'”
To be clear, Ivan told his date he was “completely fine” with her passing along her views to their potential children. And also cool with her taking them to church.
No judgments on his part at all.
“In my past, I’ve dated women who are Christian, I’ve dated women who are Muslim. I’m completely open to it, it is what it is,” Ivan said.
“You can have whatever religion you want, my main focus are the values and morals you have.”
In the end, though, this difference was too much to overcome.
“She wanted to date someone who is Christian. And that’s completely fine and that’s how a lot of people are,” said Hall on the podcast, adding that the conversation probably shouldn’t have been pushed back all the way to the finale:
“It does suck or whatever that you probably could’ve just eliminated X amount of people in the beginning for that.”
Still, Ivan harbors no grudge against The Bachelorette.
Adams is now engaged to Zac Clark and Hall has his eye on the future.
“The chapter is closed. It just is what it is. I still care for Tayshia, she’s cool, all that stuff. We had a good time,” he said, concluding on the podcast:
“He’s a great guy, I really do like him. I really appreciated the guys in the house that I considered to be real and didn’t do stuff for the camera.
“He’s a class act. He’s a man, I respect the guy to death.”