‘Swiping America’: Ash Reveals How She Convinced Jess to Join the Show

Ashleigh Warren signed up for Max’s reality series Swiping America because she wanted to find love. But her journey didn’t go exactly as she expected. The dating-focused docuseries, which released its final two episodes on June 29, follows four New Yorkers as they travel to eight cities across the U.S. The show’s producers did the swiping, sending the quartet out on a series of blind dates with local singles. 

Ash struggled to connect with her dates on ‘Swiping America’

As you might imagine, some dates went better than others. During their first stop in Asheville, North Carolina, Ash clicked with Jordan emotionally, but she didn’t “see anything there intimately.” In Miami, a seemingly promising second date went south when Zad revealed she was vegan and Ash’s meat-eating would be an issue. 

As the cast jetted from city to city, Ash found herself struggling to connect with anyone. But there was one bright spot. She was exchanging messages with a woman named Jess whom she’d met in New York prior to leaving to film the show. 

“I hadn’t been dating, because [the producers] told us to stay single,” Ash shared in an interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “And I was like, OK, But I almost feel like I need practice before I go do this on camera in front of America. So I got on Hinge for the first in a very long time, and I saw her profile.” 

“We had a great first date. And I’m like, ‘I have to tell this girl that I’m literally leaving in three weeks,’” she went on to say.

At that point, Jess and Ash parted ways, with Jess saying that perhaps they could reconnect after Ash finished filming, provided she was still single. A month went by. But Jess was still on Ash’s mind. While they’d only gone on one in-person date, that connection felt stronger than any she’d had with the dates she’d had on Swiping America. 

Ash assured Jess that the show wasn’t like ‘The Ultimatum’ 

“I was progressively not connecting with my dates,” Ash said. “And I think the producers saw that. We had a discussion about, ‘Well, how can we fix this?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I met someone. I want to be honest. Can she come?’” 

“I was expecting a no,” she added. But the producers were more open to the idea than Ash expected. They told her to reach out to Jess and see what she thought about meeting up for an on-camera date in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Ash got another shock when Jess said she was game to be a part of Swiping America. But she had some questions before she said yes.   

“I had to kind of tell her, ‘It’s not The Ultimatum, it’s not The Bachelor, it’s not drama.’ And she kind of just went with the process and trusted it and did the things that she needed to do. And here we are on television.”

While Jess said that flying all the way to New Mexico for her second date was “the craziest decision I’ve ever made,” it also turned out to be a good one. Sparks flew when they met again in person, and Jess ended up being the person Ash invited to join her in Hawaii during the show’s final episode.  

All eight episodes of Swiping America are now streaming on Max. 

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