Former two-time contestant on The Bachelor Becca Tilley is in love!
After keeping their relationship private for the past four years, Becca is now sharing details of her romance with singer Hayley Kiyoko — including the fact that Taylor Swift was one of the first people outside of their inner circle to know about them.
As reported in E! News, Becca was in Boston to see Hayley perform with Taylor and got to meet the superstar in her dressing room after the show.
Meeting Taylor “felt like talking to a friend,” the reality star said, and having the 11-time Grammy winner be one of the first people to know about them was pretty special. “I thought that was a really cool thing,” she said, “because obviously Taylor Swift stan forever.”
Becca, who appeared on both Chris Soules‘ and Ben Higgins‘ seasons of The Bachelor, publicly confirmed her relationship with Hayley in a video shared to Instagram on May 20. When asked to sum up last weekend in a Taylor song, Becca picked two tracks from Taylor’s album 1989, “Out of the Woods” and “Clean.” She explained why she chose the first track, “That whole song, like, really encompasses me, my experience and my relationship.”
Just hours before the video was posted, Hayley released the music video for her song “For the Girls,” featuring a queer version of The Bachelorette. Becca even made a cameo at the end of the video.
“Obviously we knew the video was happening and that was going to at least cause talk and speculation,” Becca said. “And in my mind I thought, ‘How do we do this reveal in the video and then not actually reveal our relationship?’ It only made sense to do it together.”
Still, Becca made it clear she was never hiding her relationship with Hayley. “For four years, it’s been our relationship, but I was telling someone the other day, like, Hayley and I were never secret,” she said. “Like, we were very much ourselves, we held hands in public, we kissed . . . If I was with Hayley, I introduced her, ‘This is my girlfriend, Hayley.’ I never was like, ‘This is my friend’ or ‘This is my best friend.’ I really made an effort to make sure there was that distinction between private and secret.”
Even though she knew their friends, family and fans would champion their relationship, Becca said there was still a part of her that was nervous to share their love with the world.
“There was this other part of me that had been fearing the reaction of people for four years,” she said. “There was that ‘Do I want to let that negativity enter our relationship?’ When I made the decision to go public with it, I thought, ‘I have this army of people who have my back no matter what and, like, the people who I care about most in the world are our supporters and they love us.’ So, I was prepared for anything and everything. I was not prepared for the amount of love and support we got.”
While speaking about the loving comments of support they’ve received, Becca teared up. “Hayley has really made me feel brave,” she continued, “and she was always like, ‘People are going to love you. People love you and they want to see you happy.’ ”
And she doesn’t feel the need to label her sexuality. “For me, it was never about my label,” Becca said. “Having the label and being able to name what they’ve experienced is really important for some people. That just wasn’t my experience . . . It’s not like, ‘This is my label. This is my sexuality.’ It’s more like, ‘Hey, I’m in love and I’m excited to share it with you all.’ ”
After looking unsuccessfully for love on two different seasons of The Bachelor, isn’t it nice to see Becca happy and in love? Now that they’ve gone public with their relationship, maybe we’ll see Becca and Hayley together on the Grammy Red Carpet one day soon!
TELL US – ARE YOU HAPPY FOR BECCA AND HAYLEY? WERE YOU SURPRISED TO HEAR THEY WERE DATING?
[Photo Credit: Rich Fury/Getty Images for NYLON]
