Ashley Jones and Bariki (Bar) Smith of Teen Mom fame have gone their separate ways.
After two years of marriage, Ashley and Bar have split amid “unforeseen issues” in their relationship.
Earlier this week, Bar posted and then deleted a message directed at his followers announcing the news.
Taking to his Instagram feed, Bar began, “So we want to clear the air, I have had amazing times and learned so many things from Ashley.”
Bar went on to say that “people grow apart” and placed no blame on himself or Ashley. He told his 86,100 Instagram followers that the decision was mutual, and they “respectfully agreed” to separate.
“I will always be there when I’m needed and so will she, but the time to separate has come,” he ended his message.
Bar Smith shares, then deletes a post announcing his and Ashley Jones’ split
Despite deleting the post shortly after sharing it, Teen Mom fans grabbed a screenshot of his message. Teen Mom Fanz on Instagram shared the message, as seen below.
In response to his and Ashley’s news making its way across social media, Bar took to an alternate Instagram account, @barashleyholly, where he reacted to the announcement spreading like wildfire.
Bar shared a snapshot of Teen Mom Fanz’s post and wrote, “erm….” at the bottom of the image. In a subsequent Story on the account, Bar shared a photo of himself during filming for an episode of Teen Mom in which he had an expressionless look on his face while holding a glass of wine.
“Me after seeing @teenmomfanz post,” he captioned the pic.
Did the Teen Mom stars forebode trouble in their relationship?
The writing may have been on the wall ahead of Bar’s announcement. Bar took to Twitter in April 2023 to retweet a message that read, “Once you’re married, there are just certain things you don’t do out of the respect of your spouse, family, and kids… It’s disgraceful.”
Could Bar have been hinting at Ashley’s behavior?
Then, earlier this month, Bar tweeted his own message, telling his followers, “Tired of competing for people to love me the way they supposed to, if you ain’t here how you need to [then] I’m not ? my heart getting colder, just leave me be at this point.”
Ashley has seemingly remained quiet on the topic, although she did share a message on Twitter recently that could pertain to her and Bar’s breakup.
On Thursday, Ashley took to the social media platform to share a message with her followers: “I used to be scared of what people think but the truth is no one really cares.”
“Everyone’s got their own s**t going on ?,” she added.
Currently, Ashley and Bar don’t follow each other on Instagram, and they’ve both scrubbed all photos of each other from their feeds.
Ashley and Bar have a history of relationship issues
Ashley and Bar secretly eloped in 2021 in an intimate ceremony with no one else in attendance. Ashley explained that since she and Bar’s families don’t get along, she wanted to avoid the drama and keep things simple.
The couple was in the midst of planning their big wedding ceremony, which was scheduled for later this year. As Ashley told PEOPLE in March 2023, “I am very excited. I think us waiting this long to have a wedding has really given me the chance to go through a few phases of what I want my wedding to look like.”
Now, it appears those wedding plans are being nixed.
Last year, Ashley hinted at problems in her and Bar’s long-standing relationship. She spoke with In Touch and revealed, “Some days, I’m ready to call it quits. Some days I’m like, you know what, we’re going the distance.”
Bar and Ashley share one child, their 5-year-old daughter, Holly.
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