Bachelor Nation alum Danielle Maltby is keeping it “real and honest” with fans while celebrating her birthday after her split from Michael Allio.
“I am so excited for some of my friends to get here today and we’re going to have a great day/night … last night and this morning were tough,” she shared in an Instagram Story post on Friday, October 6. “It’s OK to cry and feel things as they come up. Just a gentle reminder everyone feels things in their own way and time and it’s OK to cry on your birthday and it’s OK to remember who you are and everything you have to look forward to.”
As Maltby, 38, spent the weekend celebrating with close pals, she told her followers that she felt “more relaxed” after letting herself cry.
“Crying is a release and waves of emotions if you’re able to sit with and in them are momentary even if they don’t feel momentary,” Matlby continued on Friday. “OK done, going to sleep a little more on my day off.”
Maltby has shared various positive messages via social media in the aftermath of her split from Allio. Before their breakup made headlines, she reminded fans that “that everything will be OK” in a September 17 Instagram post.
One day later, Allio announced that he and Maltby were no longer together.
“I guess I’ll just come out with it. We’re not together anymore,” Allio shared on the September 18 episode of Jason Tartick’s “Trading Secrets” podcast after weeks of speculation about the pair’s status. “It’s not what we planned. We both threw a lot into this relationship and it’s really awful when it doesn’t work out.”
Maltby hit back after Allio’s announcement, claiming via her Instagram Story on September 22 that the “breakup was not a mutual decision.”
“I know so many people were rooting for Michael and I, and I appreciate your support so much,” she added. “I don’t regret the love I gave for a second.”
The former couple met during Bachelor in Paradise season 8, which aired in 2022, and bonded over experiencing grief in past relationships. Matlby’s fiancé died following a drug overdose in 2011, while Allio’s wife — with whom he shared son James — died in 2019 after a battle with breast cancer.
Days after news broke of Maltby and Allio’s split, she shared insight into what went wrong, alleging that he dumped her just one day after she underwent an egg retrieval procedure.
“The day after Michael and I got home from freezing my eggs, he … he broke up with me and I was very, very blindsided by it,” she claimed on “The WoMed” podcast last month. “Obviously, [I’m] still very emotional and hurt and confused. I still don’t really have any answers. I’m in it.”
Allio, for his part, argued via his Instagram Story that he was “extremely clear” with Maltby about not wanting more kids in the future.
“But I had to be honest about where I was at,” Allio claimed on September 22. “The idea of welcoming another child, for me, I can’t even do it. It doesn’t fit my lifestyle.”
In a separate post that same day, Allio said that he and Maltby also tried couples therapy to salvage their relationship, but it “sadly” didn’t work out.
“She wanted me to wait [to announce the breakup] and I felt, like, because I was the one that broke it off with her I should be respectful of that,” he wrote. “So, I kind of waited for her lead and when she started taking down posts on Instagram, I kind of followed suit.”
