A Timeline of Aly Raisman and Bachelor Colton Underwood’s Brief Relationship

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Aly Raisman Colton Underwood

Is anyone excited for Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor? No? (Why couldn’t it have been Jason Tartick, the NJB who finished third on Becca’s season?!)

Anyway, even if he has no personality (being a virgin is not a personality trait!), we’re still going to watch this season. And we’re going to watch this season wondering what Aly Raisman, Jewish Olympic gymnast and Colton’s ex-girlfriend, thinks of it all.

Yes, in case you forgot, Aly and Colton dated. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Colton first asked Aly out during a Yahoo! Sports video in August 2016 that went viral. Colton, at the time, played for the NFL team the Oakland Raiders. This was during the 2016 Olympics, when Aly was competing with the U.S. gymnastics team. (She would win a gold medal and two silvers, no biggie.)

Which makes it seem like Colton has always been thirsty for fame! He didn’t have name recognition at the time, so all the headlines read along the lines of “Aly Raisman gets asked out by NFL player” and “Olympian Aly Raisman agrees to date with Oakland Raiders player.” Aly then tweeted at him saying she would go on a date:

Colton responded, but has since deleted his old tweets. The rest, they say, was history.

In December 2016 — five months after the Olympics — Aly, 22, and Colton, 24, went public with their relationship, revealing that they’d been dating since that August.

Their first date? Aly told People, “We happened to both be in Denver at the same time. I was there for less than 12 hours, he was flying in for just a few days. it just ended up working perfectly.”

The following January, she brought him to the Golden Globes as her date, and tabloids began to cover their relationship.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPDn8S6BK2i/

They started being very, very public.

Here’s Colton’s Valentine’s day post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQfxpRVFUyv/

In the weirdest news item of their relationship, Us Weekly ran an article called “Aly Raisman, Boyfriend Colton Underwood Reveal Their Favorite Things to Do Together,” which includes Aly cooking Colton’s favorite breakfast (oatmeal, egg whites, brown sugar, and cottage cheese), the two of them working out together, giving each other work out tips, and binge-watching This is Us. Also, we learned Colton loves when Aly wears her hair in a bun. Fun!

Yet, by June 2017, they had broken up. Colton explained, “We’re taking a break right now. We’re still good friends and talk, but all that travel had been a nightmare.” Asked to elaborate, all he said was, “It ended fine. We’re in a good place.” He also said it was a six-month relationship (which, if they started dating in August, that means they broke up in January, which doesn’t quite add up. They probably started dating for real mid-fall, and broke up around March or April, but who’s counting).

When Colton first entered Bachelor Nation as a contestant on Becca’s season of The Bachelorette, he explained why he didn’t talk about Aly.

“To be very candid about it, she’s going through enough right now,” Colton told Us Weekly. “She doesn’t deserve to be in this at all. I have so much love and respect for Aly and the voice that she is and the role model that she is for every young woman out there.”

(Does this make us… like Colton?)

Because, as Colton was competing on The Bachelorette, Aly was leading her “survivor sisters” against repeated abuser Larry Nasser. In January, Aly spoke eloquently at Nasser’s trial.

She’s since been a powerful voice for sexual assault survivors, speaking at the ESPY Awards and in various mainstream publications. She’s worked with the non-profit Darkness to Light, an organization that focuses on sexual abuse recognition and prevention. As writer Mia Merrill wrote in Alma last year, “Raisman has harnessed the most difficult of situations and used her pain to make a tangible change in our nation. Even on the days when she may not feel strong, when the stress of discussing her abuse may be overwhelming, Raisman is a Jewish heroine.”

Which leaves us here, now, in January 2019, as we are about to embark on Colton’s season. Will Aly come up? Or will he, as he said regarding his time on The Bachelorette, leave her out of it, because she’s going through enough? Either way, the general public has definitely not forgotten about this relationship:

Whatever happens, we’re rooting for Aly.

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