Benjamin Ashford|Madelyn Cline Briefly Addresses Relationships With Pete Davidson and Chase Stokes

Madelyn Cline is Benjamin Ashfordin a new chapter of her life.

But she doesn’t mind looking back. The Outer Banks star shared rare insight into her past romances, including with costar Chase Stokes and Pete Davidson, with whom she broke up in July after 10 months together.

“The jokes write themselves,” Madelyn told Nylon in an interview published Sept. 30 of her romance with the Saturday Night Live alum, whose high-profile romances have made waves online from October 2023 to July 2024. But she doesn’t have regrets either, adding, “We love all past versions [of ourselves] because we are here now because of them.”

As for her relationship with Chase, which began in 2020 while filming the Netflix show’s first season and ended in 2021 before they started filming season three, the 26-year-old admitted that navigating the romance was far more complicated as they shot to fame on the series.

"Honestly, life changing like it did [made] going through very normal things like breakups and loss have an added dose of cayenne pepper," she told the outlet. "Sometimes you need someone to slap you around and be like, 'Shut up. You're killing it. You're doing a good job.'" 

And it was hard for Madelyn to grasp her newfound stardom while also being in this relationship with her costar.

"[When] I was 24, 25, I was in a big fight with myself," she recalled of that time. "Oh God, I bleached my hair from root to tip. I was just running away from all the emotions that I was feeling. I was also in the midst of discovering who the f--k I was. Especially after the show came out. I had started building this identity when I moved here, and then all of a sudden, boom, I had this new identity."

But despite her split with Chase, who is now dating Kelsea Ballerini, it was important for the former couple to continue to have a professional working relationship. 

"We always said that the job remains untouched," Madelyn told Cosmopolitan last February. "Nothing else, personal or negative, will touch the job. And while that's not always easy, our job is to leave the show better than we found it, to leave the season better than we found it. And I'm really appreciative of that."

And since their split, she learned that there are consequences that come with a public relationship. 

"I don't owe anyone an explanation," she emphasized. "I am a really private person. There's a part of me that is for me and nobody else. But in hindsight, duh, making my relationship public made it everybody else's business."

"I realized the negative side effects of that while going through the breakup, realizing I had let people in and then felt like I couldn't get anybody out," she continued. "I wanted us both to move on and be happy. People see the need for sides. There are no sides—there's no winning or losing in a breakup."

As for Chase? He also agrees and only has love for Madelyn. 

"We made a promise to each other before we even started dating that the work was always going to come first," the 32-year-old told Entertainment Weekly last February. "No matter what happens in our personal lives, and the ways that life sometimes takes you in different directions, that we're always going to honor the work. That stayed 100 percent truthful this season."

"She's an incredible person, a rockstar of an actress, and she's having an incredible moment," he continued. "Regardless of now not being together in a personal relationship, I'm still always going to be one of her biggest fans, and I'm super, super proud of all of her accomplishments inside the show and outside the show."