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Kristin Cavallari & Mark Estes

One thing that’s not unwritten? The way Kristin felt about her 13-year age gap with ex-boyfriend Mark Estes.

“Me dating a 24-year-old is not something that I was searching out,” The Hills alum said on a March 2024 episode of her podcast Let’s Be Honest. “It’s not something that I ever thought would ever happen. If you guys listen to the podcast, you know I thought 30-year-olds were too young for me.”

And while Kristin said she understands how “it looks to the outside world,” she insisted Mark is “not a typical 24-year-old” and that there’s more to a person than their birth year.

“I really think age is just a number,” she continued. “It’s what you’ve been through in your life, how you were raised. There are just so many factors that go into maturity other than age.”

But months later, Kristin shared she broke up with Mark.

“I just know long-term he needs to experience life,” she said on an October episode of her podcast. “He’s young. He is. I started to feel the age a bit just with life experience. I look back when I was 24 and how much life has happened for me in between then. Those are crucial years. Those are formative years. This is when you find yourself and he needs to be able to do that.”

Still, she called their romance “the best relationship” of her life and expressed hope that Mark will realize their split was for the best.

“I know that one day he will look back and he will understand it,” she added, “and I actually think one day he will thank me.”