JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers joined to guide contestants through relationship hiccups — and as a bonus, they realized they were also benefiting from time with the show’s therapist.
The couple, who tied the knot last year after getting engaged on season 12 of The Bachelorette, told Kaitlyn Bristowe on Tuesday’s episode of her Off the Vine podcast that they often ended up working through some of their own issues with Dr. Jada Jackson.
“We didn’t even know half the time that we were in a therapy session but we were in it,” said Fletcher, 32.
Rodgers, 34, explained that sometimes “we’d be sitting in the green room like right after filming” and end up debriefing about their own takes on the contestants’ problems.
“We would sometimes go talk about what had just happened and, you know, Jordan would have one perspective on it, I would have another perspective on it and we would start to talk to Dr. Jada because she was in the green room with us,” Fletcher continued.
Even though they’d been discussing another couple’s issue, Rodgers said they sometimes realized “it was actually about our relationship.”
“We loved it!” said his Saint Spritz co-founder wife.
Fletcher and Rodgers, who also hosted on CNBC, felt like they could support the contestants as not just a married couple, but one that also put their relationship in front of the camera.
“This was actually the first show that we’ve hosted together where we felt like it was … we could give a little bit of insight based on experience that we share together. Right?” Fletcher said. “In terms of, you’re meeting in a very unique way, you have cameras all around you, no one’s used to this, we’re asking you to open your heart up to just anything, right? That this could be real.”
The former Bachelorette stressed that she and Rodgers wanted to be present for The Big D’s participants looking for a second chance at love after divorce.
“From the get-go, we really wanted to make sure that they knew we aren’t just the hosts that are going to come in here, read a couple lines and then peace out and then tell you who’s going home,” Fletcher said. “We wanted them to feel like they had an outlet ’cause I feel like for me at least on our show, it’s like you’re detached from your life, your people, your world, no phone, no nothing. And like, I would have my producer and I would have Chris Harrison when he was around sometimes that I could talk to and I remember feeling like, God I’m just glad I have that, right? Sometimes I just need to vent.”
Now that the roles have reversed, and Fletcher and Rodgers find themselves as the hosts instead of the contestants, “we tried to be that [support system] for them.”
That mentality even applied when the cameras stopped rolling, according to Fletcher: “There were a lot of times that we would, off camera, just see someone struggling with something that maybe we had struggled with before in this sort of setting and just go talk to them.”
Earlier in the podcast episode, Fletcher and Rodgers admitted that their journey hasn’t always been perfect.
“We had this one moment where we were like, it’s OK if this is not best for us as individuals,” Fletcher said. “I love you, I respect you, like it’s OK if we both decide this isn’t something we want anymore.”
This took place in the first in the first year of their relationship coming off of The Bachelorette.
“That was on the cusp of a couple blowup fights and a really tough month and a half,” Rodgers said. “And were just like, we don’t have it figured out and maybe it’s best if we’re not together, or maybe we need to come together and realize, hey, we have a lot of s — — we need to work on and we need to actually work on it.”
In the end, they chose the latter.
“We really do well working together,” Fletcher said, “which we were shocked by.”
The Big D airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on USA.
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