The Ultimatum’s Vanessa Says Nick Was A “Different Person” Off-Camera

There was a lot more to Vanessa Hattaway’s experience on The Ultimatum than what was shown. Her trial marriage to Nick Tramontin was depicted as a sweet bond, so viewers were surprised when she suddenly left the experiment right after it began. But in reality, Vanessa says she was too uncomfortable to be with Nick any longer. “I don’t think anybody would’ve stayed in that situation,” she tells Elite Daily.

While she did have a “good initial friendship” with Nick, Vanessa says she quickly saw a change in him once they coupled up. “After the choice [to couple up] was when I really saw this total 180, different person,” Vanessa says. “I found out he had not been entirely truthful with me about many of the things we had connected over, and that was very off-putting. I also witnessed some behavior that made me really uncomfortable. Nick shared a lot about his personal life behind the scenes that made me feel in a place of... I don’t want to say danger, but I’ve seen this behavior before in past relationships, and I didn’t want to stay in that situation.”

She specifies, “Nick shared with me that he was mentally unstable and that he lied on his psych evaluation and had abuse issues.” Elite Daily reached out to Nick and Netflix regarding this claim but did not hear back about it at the time of publication. Nick did, however, provide a comment on his experience with Vanessa:

“I acknowledged and apologized numerous times if my being upset made her uncomfortable. She accepted my apology and made it clear that I wasn’t the sole reason she left the show. I genuinely wish [her and Dave] the best and hope they find happiness and kindness. I also hope they’ll choose compassion over attacking the character of someone they only spent two intense, emotional days with.” Nick adds that he previously believed there was no unresolved tension between himself and Vanessa and that he is surprised to hear this perspective from her.

Vanessa says she was also unnerved when she caught Nick trying to spin a narrative for the show’s cameras. According to her, she comforted him after he learned his partner Sandy Gallagher had kissed her trial husband J.R. Warren, only for Nick to try to flip things once the cameras arrived.

He was putting on this act to make himself the victim.

“The live camera crew came in our apartment, and immediately he decided to twist the whole situation and attack me, saying that I wasn’t there for him, and that I was insensitive and not empathizing with him. I still don’t understand why,” Vanessa says. “But that was the opposite of what had happened for the last five hours. I was like, ‘Nick, you realize we were also on camera earlier, right? So you’re contradicting yourself completely right now. And if that’s shown, people will see that.’”

The moment didn’t end up airing in the final cut. (Elite Daily also reached out to Nick and Netflix regarding unseen footage but did not hear back.)

Once Vanessa pointed out that discrepancy, she says Nick changed his tune. “He dropped the act right then. It felt like he was putting on this act to make himself the victim, and I was the villain for no reason,” Vanessa says. “It came out of nowhere. It was really odd.”

He was trying to make this whole fake situation.

The next day, she says she returned to the apartment to find a big shift in Nick’s mood. “I came back from the grocery store, and Nick was already hammered drunk,” Vanessa says. “He had cocktails made for us, he had loud music blasting, and a disco ball was going. It was this extreme opposite of what I had just experienced the night before. He was trying to make this whole fake situation, it felt like such an act. I’m not an actress, so that was really uncomfortable for me. I wasn’t about to be like, ‘Yeah, let’s have a dance party.’” This scene was also not shown in the series.

After all of this, Vanessa says she contacted her original partner, Dave Adams, telling him she wanted to leave the show. “Everyone thinks Dave got me to leave. It’s actually the opposite,” Vanessa says. “I told him I couldn’t see how I could possibly stick this out for another three weeks. I mean, this was only three days of living with this, and it was unbearable. I was just going mental.”

On The Ultimatum, Vanessa and Dave’s exits were depicted as if they secretly ran off one night, with title cards claiming “surveillance cameras captured them packing” before they “quickly departed” from the apartments.

But Vanessa says that’s not how things went down. “I really want to clarify that I did tell Nick I was leaving. And I even have text receipts,” she says. “He was very in the know, and he knew that a big part of it was because of his behavior. Also, we didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night. It was like 9 p.m.”