sarah stone

If reality television stars can't find true love through liquor and hot tubs, is there any hope for the rest of us? It's true, the latest happy couple created on ABC's The Bachelor is splitsville. Despite professing mutual admiration for each other when The Bachelor concluded last month, it turns out that Travis Stork and Sarah Stone weren't meant to be. Stork gave Stone a diamond ring on a necklace during the season finale on Feb. 27th, but didn't propose. He just said he wanted to return to Nashville (hometown for both of them) to see how it goes. Of course, that actual interaction happened in November and the two haven't been allowed to see each other or date until the season finale aired last month. Stork and Stone follow a long line of The Bachelor couples who haven't made it. In fact, the only couple that survives is The Bachelorette's Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter, who married in December 2003.

I've been hearing rumors that Travis and Sarah's "perfect" romance that wound up on "The Bachelor: Paris" Monday  might already be done, and certainly the fact that the two didn't do the usual press rounds didn't seem like a good sign.  Maybe they are private people (ha!) or maybe, just maybe, all that perfectness just didn't last. Reader Terese sent me a link to Bricks and Stones, who have more solid proof. It's a bit friend-of-a-friend, but it seems Travis has reunited with his girlfriend of five years. He and Sarah did date briefly and Travis is now in consultation to be a doctor consultant on ABC shows (surprise, surprise). The juiciest and saddest detail is that during the final rose ceremony, he said "I love you Sarah," but asked ABC and to edit it out since "it wouldn't be fair to her now." Ouch! 

And while we are rumor-mongering, a link on Bricks and Stone also lead me to a comment on the BachelorRecap blog (it's the anonymous one at 2:09) which has an email that is allegedly from Mike, Travis's brother-in-law. It says that he and Sarah are done, that she may be dating a football player (the Tennessean reports she is dating a friend of a football player,) and that if Travis had it to do all over again he would have picked Susan and Jehan to go to the final two. Does this set a record for the fastest Bachelor break-up?