Monday night on
The Bachelor, when Peter ran into an old ex-girlfriend in Virginia Beach during his hometown date with Victoria F., everyone in Bachelor Nation was like, “Dang, this isn’t going to be good.” How could it be? Every time this season when an ex has come into the mix, it’s been a disaster. First, Hannah B returned during week 1 and week 2 to talk about the lingering feels between them, which was so tearful and confusing, Peter cancelled the cocktail evening.Then later in the season, during Peter’s one-on-one date with Victoria, her ex-boyfriend Chase Rice serenaded them both, which caused so much friction that she stormed off during their dinner in a hailstorm of tears. You could even count Alayah—who came back a week after not getting a rose and nearly sparked a full-on Bachelorette revolution—as another ex who messed with things.We’ve said it maybe once or twice (or a bajillion) times before that Peter
seems to feed off of this kind of drama, so his ears must have perked up when his ex-girlfriend from 2012 suddenly appeared in Monday night’s episode to issue him a warning about none other than—you guessed it—Victoria.The ex’s face was blurred during the entire encounter but Peter called her “Merissa” and later on he told Victoria she was his ex. During the brief but intense chat, she told Peter, "I don't think you deserve what you're on a date with right now,” which made Peter stop in his tracks, and later she added, "There's been many relationships broken up because of her." She revealed that she had been friends with Victoria for a time and that because Peter was such a great guy, she was worried about him getting caught up with someone who wasn’t genuine. “Just be careful.” The chat was less than five minutes long but it shook Peter (and all of us!) to his core, so much so that he confronted Victoria about it, which as you can imagine from her past behaviour,
didn’t go so well (ugh).
So after a bit of sleuthing and gum-shoeing, here’s what we know about this mysterious Merissa.First of all, her full name is Merissa Pence. A quick look at her very popular and fashionable Instagram reveals *gasp*
a picture of her and Peter from 2012 during the time of their relationship. Look how young and happy he seems there! If only he knew what was in his future…During her chat with Peter, she joked that his jacket looked a lot like the one he bought from Guess when she worked there. Turns out,
she graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in 2013 with an Associate of Arts degree in Fashion Merchandising (the
Elle Woods degree, if you will), plus she has occasionally modeled and done the pageant circuit. So the woman has style and brains (and obviously from last night, she clearly has guts!).Merissa knows Victoria because they run in the same social circles, but she says her first encounter with Victoria was pretty dramatic (Drama? With Victoria? Well we, for one, are shocked).
According to her, Victoria threatened to slash Merissa’s tires because she was hanging out with one of Victoria’s ex-boyfriends. We need to take everything with a grain of salt since we've got a She-Said-She-Said situation on our hands, but yikes.[video_embed id='1590349']RELATED: Bachelor contestant Hannah B would NOT like to make a toast[/video_embed]Merissa hasn’t explicitly commented (yet) on last night’s episode, but in her Insta Stories, she did
post a picture that said “beware of shark” with a red rose, and tagged quite a few
Bachelor bloggers and reality TV commentators. It doesn’t take much to read between those lines.So we’re not sure exactly why Merissa wanted her face blurred if she was going to be out here doing interviews and posting on Insta, but it certainly offered an air of mystery to an otherwise run-of-the-mill Hometowns
Bachelor ep.At the end of said episode, Peter the drama-lover still gave Victoria a rose (over Kelsey too, no less), so despite all the fights and constant crises, he seems to still be falling for the dark-haired beauty. Only time will tell if this recent hiccup will bear fruit later on in the season.[video_embed id='1902293']BEFORE YOU GO: Jennifer Hudson leads an emotional tribute to Kobe Bryant at All-Star Game[/video_embed]
