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Breaking down the timeline. Bartise Bowden opened up about becoming a father — and clarified when son Hayden was conceived amid confusion due to his stints on Netflix’s Love Is Blind and Perfect Match.
“I did Love Is Blind, I did Perfect Match, I had a son, and the timeline of all that, how it plays out on camera doesn’t make any sense,” the reality star, 27, said on the Tuesday, May 30, episode of the “Talk’R” podcast. “What actually happened was, I filmed Love Is Blind. I had a whole relationship between Love is Blind and Perfect Match, filmed Perfect Match, came back, conceived a son.”
Bowden recalled waiting to announce his baby boy’s arrival due to his involvement with various reality TV shows.
“Perfect Match had not been out yet, had not aired, so I knew if I would make the announcement that I had a son before Perfect Match airs, it’s gonna make no sense to anybody,” the senior analyst, who made his reality TV debut on season 3 of Love Is Blind, said. “That’s why I made the announcement at a time where I felt it was the safest for everybody involved and specifically, with my life, I had done these TV shows.”
Bowden surprised fans earlier this year when he announced that he is a father. “Might’ve been the villain on TV, but I’m gonna be the hero for him. Instagram, meet my little man,” he captioned an Instagram carousel of snaps in April of the newborn, including one where he and his son watched an episode of Love Is Blind season 4.
Bartise Bowden Courtesy of Bartise Bowden/Instagram
The former TV personality added via his Instagram Story: “We went from zaddy onscreen to daddy in real life. Yep, look at that, he just spit up all over us, didn’t he?”
During his podcast appearance, Bowden said it was important to him to protect the privacy of his child and the baby’s mother. “There’s a difference between privacy and secrecy,” he noted on Tuesday. “I want to keep my private life as private as I can get it to be, or as private as I needed it to be for my son and my baby mama and for everybody involved in my close circle.”
The Netflix star went on to gush about the decision to expand his family, adding, “I want to share his life because I am so proud and I’m so proud of his mother. I’m so proud of the relationship that we all have, the three of us together.”
Bowden also offered an update on where he stands with his son’s mother.
“Even though we’re not dating, we are friends. I say this all the time: We are single parenting and coparenting at the same time,” he shared about the duo’s dynamic. “I hang out with my son alone, I hang out with his mom alone, we’ll hang out with the three of us together, I’ll hang out with her family. We are very involved together and separately, which is beautiful, and I wouldn’t want it any other way given our circumstances.”
