The Voice isn’t Rudi Gutierrez’s first foray into reality TV as she previously appeared on The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart.
The Bachelor Nation franchise spinoff debuted on ABC in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, where a crop of single musicians sought to find both love and a record deal. Rudi, now 28, was one of the hopefuls looking for romance on the reality TV series, quickly developing a crush on fellow contestant Matt Ranaudo.
Despite interest in Matt, now 35, Rudi did not want their spark to burn out too fast and notably dodged his kiss when they went into the hot tub during the April 2020 premiere. Thinking the near-kiss meant that Rudi was no longer interested, Matt invited Mel Taevin on his first one-on-one. After realizing they didn’t have chemistry, he wanted to get back in Rudi’s good graces.
“Sometimes stuff comes out of my mouth that I don’t even know what’s going on,” Matt told Rudi after she claimed he led her on from the get-go.
While Rudi called him out for making her look like a “dumbass,” she ultimately opted to give her rose to Ryan Neal. Cheyenne Arnell then decided to save Matt during the rose ceremony.
As the weeks went on, Matt had the chance to make it up to Rudi and they made sweet music together during the challenge performances. The duo even made it to the finale week, which took them to Las Vegas for the live gigs.
Rudi, however, was upset that Matt was not adept at communicating his emotions before he revealed that he was hesitant to fall in love because of the walls he had built up from past relationships. In fact, when Rudi revealed that she was falling for him, he merely thanked her for “sharing [her] truth.”
Despite a rocky last week together, Rudi and Matt came together for an emotional cover of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow,” which earned rave reviews from the judges. The performance even solidified Matt’s desire to continue making music with Rudi “forever.”
While the duo ended on somewhat solid ground, they lost The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart to Bri Stauss and Chris Watson. (Bri and Chris ultimately split in January 2021 after releasing a joint LP.)
After leaving the show, Rudi and Matt continued to date on and off.
“Matt just had a really hard time navigating his feelings throughout this whole entire thing,” Rudi said during a May 2020 interview on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. “When you do perform in front of those judges and you have a great performance, how can you not be on cloud 25? You’re on a whole other level of happiness. I was always there with him.”
She added: “We’re very, very close. He’s a confused person, and I’ll let him be confused. My feelings cannot just turn off like that, so I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about him. We’ll see what happens.”
Rudi later claimed in 2021 that Matt lied to her and secretly had another girlfriend during the duration of their relationship.
“I haven’t said anything because there is a lot to this situation and I haven’t wanted to publicly air it all out. I’m not hiding anything. I have just been dealing with a lot,” he wrote in an Instagram Story statement at the time, denying Rudi’s claims. “Things with my family and things in my life. The bottom line is I should have been upfront about the details of my on and off relationship. I was trying to keep everyone happy. I wish I explained it but I didn’t so that’s on me. Also, remember we weren’t together!!”
Matt added: “As for making music, I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. I don’t need anyone with me to do what my passion in life is. So I will continue to do so. I am truly sorry if I let anyone down that was never my intention.”
Rudi has since moved on both personally and professionally, signing up for season 24 of The Voice. Her emotional performance of Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” got all four judges — John Legend, Niall Horan, Gwen Stefani and Reba McEntire — to turn around. Rudi ultimately picked Gwen, 54, as her coach before the next round of the competition.
