Well, it turns out those whispers of a summer romance between Olivia Bentley and David ‘Temps’ Templer were more than just that: the pair are now officially dating on the most recent series of Made In Chelsea. Of course, that hasn’t gone down very well Olivia Bentley’s ex, Tristan Phipps.
On the most recent episode, Tristan expressed his disappointment that his friends of eight years – a man he used to live with – was now getting involved with ‘a woman I wanted to marry’. In an emotional scene at the end of the episode, Tristan admitted to Liv that he was still trying to ‘fall out of love’ with her and seeing her with his friend was not helping.
The conflict has caused debate among fans of Made in Chelsea who are divided about whether Tristan really has a right to cause a stir in Liv’s new romantic endeavour. Why? Well, there’s a few reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t appear that Tristan and Temps have been particularly close for a while now, although they clearly were at one point to be housemates. Tristan has also had two romantic links on the show since he and Liv split up, first Yasmine Zweegers in MIC: Corsica, and now Lauren Sintès who has also expressed an interest in his best friend, Harvey Armstrong.
It's fair to say that the MIC lot are an incestuous group at the best of times, but recent months have certainly taken the cake in terms of the amount of cast members that have seemingly swapped relationships. To be fair to Tristan though, there doesn’t seem to be a recent example of him going after a friend's ex-girlfriend – so he can hardly be accused of that specific hypocrisy like many of the rest of the cast could. Of course, being on a show like Made in Chelsea does mean that seeing your ex with someone new – and most likely someone you’re already at least colleagues with, if not actual friends – is part of the territory.
Does that mean Tristan deserves to be dogged for expressing his feelings though? We would vote no. Seeing him so upset at the end of the episode (particularly after Liv made it clear she was able to ‘fall out of love’ with Tristan very quickly after they broke up) anyone would be able to empathise with a person who is struggling to see their ex move on to someone new, let alone a friend.
That’s not to say Liv and Temps don’t deserve to explore their new connection of course (they’re a cute watch), after all Tristan certainly didn’t make things easy for Liv by going after Yasmine so soon after their break-up. Ultimately, all a situation like this needs is, as he says, hard boundaries. Liv and Temps should be able to date as much as they want, but they don’t necessarily have to be hot and heavy in front of Tristan, right?