Sara Carton is shedding light on why she said “I don’t” to Ben Mezzenga at the altar on the season 8 finale of Love Is Blind.
Sara, 29, and Ben, 28, got engaged sight unseen during the Netflix experiment and faced their first hurdle when she received a TikTok claiming that he had mistreated an ex. While they seemingly moved past the drama on the show, Sara told Us Weekly that it played a major role in the downfall of their relationship.
“The TikTok was hard. The TikTok is when I was like, ‘I have a lot more I need to get to know about Ben.’ I don’t want that to make it seem like that was my decision-maker because I continued moving forward thinking, ‘We can get past this.’ But that was big for me,” she explained. “And that was big for my family, for trust and making sure this is a safe person to be with and to get married.”
Sara later received more social media posts about Ben, including one person claiming the former baseball player had given business cards advertising his YouTube channel to past flings.
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“I received that YouTube card [or a picture of it] five days before the wedding,” Sara revealed to Us. “It was actually sent to me from a friend in Nashville. I was a travel nurse at the time in Nashville and his friend sent it to him. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’”
Sara didn’t even bother confronting Ben about it at the time. “I kept it very close to my heart. I was like, ‘I can’t handle anything more. I cannot bring this up.’ So I just didn’t,” she said. “That was just one more thing [that] made me feel like, ‘OK, he may not be as genuine as he is saying or seems to be.’ And it all made sense after the wedding.”
Sara and Ben’s relationship has been a hot topic on social media as she made a point to ask him about religion, politics and other taboo topics from the start.
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“Ultimately, throughout our relationship and continuing to talk about the values and having those hard conversations, I felt like we never progressed,” she said. “I was constantly asking and talking to him about these values way more than I ever would. Like, they’re important to me, but I wasn’t asking [about these topics] just to ask him — I wasn’t getting anything in return.”
Sara believes Ben was “putting me in a very difficult spot” of having to reask tough questions — namely about the importance of religion in his life.
“I realize watching it back how important religion really is for him. I never heard that from him,” she said, adding that she was “confused” seeing Ben pray several times with multiple members of his family on their wedding day. “You would think someone religious or with that spirituality — that they would want their partner to have the same level. But I never got that from him. So that’s why I kind of figured it’s just, like, ‘He goes to church.’ He never talked about his faith or prayer or anything with me in a day-to-day setting. I’m still learning about him.”
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Overall, Sara “couldn’t put [her] finger on it” but knew “something felt off” with Ben.
“But every time he talked to me, he told me how much he loved me. And so it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m being so harsh.’ But it just felt off. I knew something was off,” she said. “I had hesitations even though I was like, ‘I love this person. I can’t imagine him not in my life anymore.’ But I still knew I [couldn’t] say yes. It just wouldn’t sit right.”
Sara also credited the support of her family, including her sister, Lisa, and her partner, Kelsie, for helping her make her decision.
“I couldn’t have done it without them. And also my brother, my mom and stepdad, they were my rocks. I cannot state how much I appreciate them for being there for me,” she said. “Lisa and Kelsie, they’re very rational people and that helps me keep grounded. Sometimes I’m, like, all about the fantasies and being spontaneous and having fun and they helped me a lot, especially with this scenario putting it all in context. I know it’s fast, we know it’s fast. That’s the whole name of the game. But with everything that just didn’t sit right, they helped me feel OK that it may not be my person and that’s OK — even though I so badly wanted it to be my person and have this beautiful thing work for me.”
When asked why she didn’t end things before the weddings, Sara explained that “there was really never anything bad that happened in our relationship. So I just kept thinking, ‘OK, like, we’ll just keep going with it.’”
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“It was more just the emotional, mental piece that just didn’t sit right with me. Like, nothing he said ever made me question his integrity with me, but he did always seem to say the right thing,” she continued. “And whenever I would leave a conversation, I’d sometimes ask myself, like, ‘Is there any weight to these words?’ I would question myself, like, ‘Am I being too critical?’ It’s a mind game and it’s really emotionally complex. But ultimately, it shouldn’t be confusing trying to figure out your person. … I think I was just constantly giving him the benefit of the doubt. That’s just who I am. I give people the benefit of the doubt all the time. I don’t think that’s necessarily a horrible thing. But I did that a lot and I learned a lot. I saw that I was protecting him. I should have probably listened to my intuition a little more, but we made it to the altar and that’s when I was sure.”
To conclude our interview, Us asked if Sara had a final question for Ben — and she didn’t miss a beat. “I wonder if he voted in the 2024 election,” she told Us.
Love Is Blind season 8 is currently streaming. The reunion drops on Netflix Sunday, March 9, at 9 p.m. ET.
