The Ultimatum’s Hayley Hendrich has broken her silence after her former fiancé, Blake Robertson, was arrested for alleged assault.
“It’s been hard. It’s been very hard just having to relive everything,” Hayley exclusively told Us on Tuesday, July 21. “It’s been really hard just because there were certain decisions that I made regarding that whole situation.”
Season 4 of The Ultimatum, which premiered earlier this month, introduced audiences to Hayley and Blake’s rocky relationship. While they ended the season engaged, news broke off screen that Blake was arrested in October 2025.
According to court documents obtained by multiple outlets, Blake was arrested in Nacogdoches, Texas, after he allegedly put his hands on Hayley.
“Blake’s case was rightfully dismissed by the prosecutor almost immediately, and all records were expunged,” Blake’s attorney told E! News in a statement.
Blake, for his part, issued his own response. “Everything my attorney has said is correct. The case was dismissed within a month. Hayley signed the affidavit,” he told the outlet. “We are still in contact today. We’ve got the reunion coming up soon so everyone stay tuned.”
While speaking to Us, Hayley admitted it was hard to rewatch her romance with Blake.
“After all the healing that you’ve tried to do, you just have to relive it,” she continued. “Especially in the public eye, I feel like it makes it 1000 times harder. It’s been a lot.”
Hayley and Blake joined the hit Netflix series after he was ready to get engaged — but she wasn’t. After being paired off with other people, Hayley and Blake reconsidered their commitment to each other and were seemingly making plans for a wedding.
“After the engagement, we lived together and I was very unstable once I got back. There were a lot of triggers and so I don’t feel like we really were able to enjoy our engagement,” Hayley recalled. “Regarding the emotional side [of things] — at that point — I felt like I had been asking for it for so long that it didn’t feel genuine to me anymore. I was like, ‘OK, well, now you’re doing it and I’ve asked you for a year to meet my emotional needs.’”
Hayley felt “really bad” at the time, adding, “He tried. It took a year, but he was trying. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to really soak that in. It was resentment at that point. It was just not good. It affected our relationship a lot.”
She continued: “At that point, I felt like I was pouring into a cup that wasn’t pouring into mine. I felt like my cup was empty and I just didn’t know who I was anymore. I lost myself 1,000 percent in that relationship and I take account only for my faults in it. All you can do is grow from it and become a better person for yourself and for the next person you end up with.”
Hayley and Blake were ultimately not able to make it work long term.
“We broke up in September of 2025 and then we lived together still until I would say the end of October while I got off my feet,” she clarified. “At the reunion, I did not get any closure. Him and I have spoken since the reunion. It’s been back and forth. Sometimes no closure is closure and I just have accepted that.”
While looking back at her experience on The Ultimatum, Hayley second guessed her decision to partake in the dating experiment. “I wasn’t excited. It just felt wrong,” she admitted. “I don’t think I should have said yes. I always idolized Blake throughout our relationship and so I always put him above myself a lot of the time. I feel like that played into my hopeless romanticism. I do regret it, but I also don’t regret it because I feel like I learned a lot from it.”
She concluded: “I feel like I’m absolutely ready to turn the next page. I do feel like I still have some healing to do and so I think it would be selfish of me to really put myself out there again after things that have happened recently. Just for the sake of my mental sanity, you should not bring your last relationship’s problems onto your next one. I am not ready yet, but I feel like sometime soon.”
The Ultimatum is streaming on Netflix.
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