Before meeting boyfriend Christian McCaffrey, Olivia Culpo had some reservations about dipping her toe back into the athlete dating pond.
Speaking about her relationship with the Carolina Panthers running back during Wednesday’s Instagram Live with the dating app S’more, the 28-year-old supermodel said she wasn’t sure if meeting the NFL star would be the “right move,” following a messy split with wide receiver Danny Amendola.
“I met Christian through mutual friends,” Culpo said of pal Kristen Louelle and her husband, Tyler Gaffney, who went to McCaffrey’s alma mater Stanford.
“They were like, ‘Olivia, there’s this guy you really have to meet him.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not dating an athlete. I really just don’t think that’s the right move for me.’ Bad history there. Let’s just — turn.”
In the fall of 2018, Amendola — who played for the Miami Dolphins at the time — was photographed at the beach with journalist Bianca Peters. Days after the shots emerged, Culpo pulled the plug on their on-and-off-again romance.
Fortunately for Culpo and McCaffrey, “it ended up working out.”
“We’ve been inseparable ever since last July,” Culpo said Wednesday of her 24-year-old beau. “We’ve been dating for over a year, and he’s just really nice.”
Culpo then spoke about what sets her relationship with McCaffrey apart from other experiences she’s endured.
“First and foremost, it’s just time. I really don’t find it to be particularly helpful to bash anybody you’ve ever dated, I actually think that says a lot more about you than the other person,” Culpo said.
“I think timing is everything, and I think we all evolve and we’re meant to meet people that teach us a certain lesson in life. Sometimes that lines up to really move forward and other times it lines up because you were supposed to learn something and then that’s it.”
Culpo and McCaffrey celebrated their one-year anniversary over this summer.