Florida woman visits Busch Gardens with fiancé. Then she calls off the wedding by the end of his ride: ‘THANK GOD you found out before marriage’
A Florida woman goes to Busch Gardens in Tampa, a popular amusement park, with her fiancé and future mother-in-law. She gets a gut feeling to check his phone while she waits for him to get off a ride and sees a text message that changes everything.
In a video with 4.6 million views, TikToker Ari (@ari.helvs) sits teary-eyed on her couch. She announces that she found out two days prior that her fiancé cheated on her three months before she was supposed to walk down the aisle.
Viewers begin to beg for a story time on her original video, and she eventually obliges two days later. The now-viral story behind how she found out quickly reached over 4.4 million views.
How did she find out at Busch Gardens?
Ari starts by noting that she had no idea that her fiancé was cheating.
“There were no signs at all,” she says, calling the weeks between when he cheated and when she found out “normal.”
Ari then recounts the day she found out. She says she went to Busch Gardens with her fiancé and his mother, but forgot her phone in the car. So, while her fiancé and his mother went on one ride, she decided to scroll on his phone to stay occupied.
“I just opened it. And I clicked on the messages. I saw her name,” she says. Ari immediately recognizes the woman she calls “Megan” as an old friend of her fiancé’s.
“I clicked on her name and it was all right there,” she continues. “[The text messages] were nasty…The whole thing took me about 12 seconds.”
Then, she looks up and sees her fiancé and his mom walking towards her.
Did she confront him?
Ari says her fiancé immediately realized that she saw the messages, as they were still up when she gave him his phone back.
“Immediately he was in my ear like ‘Gimme a chance to explain this. Ari, it’s not what it looks like,'” she recounts.
Her fiancé suggests that his mom drive home, and they Uber to talk about the situation in private. But Ari decides to tell his mom what she found instead.
“I told his mom on him. She was too stunned to speak when I told her. Disgusted,” she says. Ari decides to cut the trip short and head home.
She speaks to her fiancé the next day, and he insists that the hook-up was a “one time lapse in judgement.” Despite his claims, Ari decides to break off the engagement. Her now-ex-fiancé agreed to pay for it.
Ari shares that she also briefly messaged the woman he cheated with over Instagram.
“I said, ‘Thank you,'” Ari says, showing that the woman read the message but didn’t reply.
How did viewers react to the storytime?
Ari’s TikTok is one of many in a growing trend of women sharing their stories of overcoming betrayal. Most notably, Reesa Teesa’s 50-part “Who TF Did I Marry?” series garnered well over 500 million views.
Many commenters praise Ari for her response to discovering the messages, including telling his mom, and her classy response to the woman he cheated with.
“Normalize NO second chances…you did the right thing,” one writes.
Another says, “The ‘thank you’ is such queen behavior. I have 2 little girls. I hope I raise them to have such high morals and self esteem to NEVER tolerate this kind of disrespect.”
“Filling his mom in on this wasn’t ‘getting back at him’, it was honoring yourself,” a third adds. “It was not letting him paint the situation as something it wasn’t. Never stay silent for someone who stayed silent while they betrayed you.”
In a follow-up video, Ari thanks her viewers for the support and for “uplifting” her during a difficult time.
And while most people wouldn’t think of Busch Gardens as the place to catch your partner cheating, several say it happened to them.
One woman writes, “I also found out my bf had slept with someone else while at busch gardens when he went on a ride and gave me his phone to hold. it’s horrific now but one day you’ll never think of him again.”
“Omg why is Busch gardens the place that the truth comes out because I caught my baby daddy on Father’s Day. Well I like finally had the proof I needed. But yeah he left his end phone in the stroller and two women not one were blowing him up,” a second shares.
@ari.helvs Niche change alert‼️ I’ve loved posting on TikTok and building a community and I can’t let him take any more of me than he already has
♬ original sound – ARI
The Mary Sue reached out to Ari via email and Instagram direct message and to Busch Gardens via email for further comment.
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