‘RHOP’: This Was Ashley Darby’s ‘Final Straw’ With Luke Gulbranson
The Real Housewives of Potomac fans may not have known what to expect from the relationship between Ashley Darby and Luke Gulbranson. It was interesting for them to discover just how it played out. Their brief romance lasted for two and half months before they called it quits. Now we have an inside look at what happened.
Ashley Darby and Luke Gulbranson’s relationship
The RHOP star and the Winter House star first met at BravoCon in October 2022 after Andy Cohen agreed to introduce the pair. According to US Weekly, Darby and Gulbranson soon exchanged texts and FaceTimed. It wasn’t long before they went on a double date with Gulbranson’s Summer House costars Carl Radke and Lindsay Hubbard.
Just before the 2022 holiday season, Darby and Gulbranson announced their relationship on social media. Darby posted a selfie of the two in Gulbranson’s home state of Minnesota. Her caption read, “The definition of a winter wonderland. I didn’t know I missed snow so much!” She added, “Thank you for showing me the beauty of Minnesota.”
When the pair met, Darby was dealing with a separation from her husband, and the former couple weren’t yet officially divorced. Page Six reports that it was during RHOP‘s Season 7 reunion premiere that moderator Cohen asked Darby, “Do you think there’s a chance for the two of you in the future? You and Luke?” She replied by saying, “Um, I don’t know,” she replies. “I started falling in love with the guy.”
Ashley Darby and Luke Gulbranson’s breakup
Sadly, the relationship didn’t last long. People reported that Darby admitted the two “just sort of grew apart” after dating for less than three months. She confirmed, “Luke and I are not romantically involved anymore” after fans speculated that the couple split after deleting photos of each other from their respective social media accounts.
Darby said of the relationship, “I met his whole family. They were amazing. I fell in love with them. It was so great.” After being asked by Cohen if she and Gulbranson were still friendly after their breakup, Darby replied by saying, “We’re friendly.”
When Cohen said, “I don’t understand why you deleted the picture and you don’t follow him and yet you’re amicable,” she replied by saying, “I like to sort of put the period on things. It’s a period, pooh. Done. So, that’s why I did that.”
Darby’s ‘final straw’ with Gulbranson
No one likes to see a relationship come to an end. Darby recently addressed exactly what led to the breakup and the “final straw.” She spoke about her ongoing divorce from her husband, saying, “My situation is complicated. My stuff with my previous partner has gotten better, but at that time, [it] was really bad. [Luke] stuck out through a lot of it.”
Darby continued by adding, “I commend him, but there was a final straw that we decided to keep between us,” she added. “And I respect that.”
That’s not all that Darby had to say about the end of her relationship with Gulbranson. She also commented, “My life is very complicated, as you guys can imagine. And Luke was a trooper — believe me, he went through some things.”
According to Bravo TV, the RHOP star also spoke of her estranged husband and whether he was a factor in her breakup. Darby explained, “That, and I mean it’s not really about Luke. We just have a hard time period with co-parenting and separating.”
