Who Is Merissa Pence, Peter Weber's Ex-Girlfriend Who Showed Up on 'The Bachelor'?

Spoilers for The Bachelor. On last night's episode of The Bachelor, a blurry-faced lady yelled out to Peter Weber as he was heading back from a date with contestant Victoria Fuller. He turned, recognized his ex, and then she rocked his world by spilling the beans on some really rough rumors about Fuller. A devastated Weber left to go have a chat with Fuller, and viewers collectively turned to each other and said, "Wait, who is that girl??" Merissa Pence, who's a Virginia Beach resident who says she happens to know Fuller through mutual friends, came on the show to warn Weber about Fuller's pre-show behavior and let him know that he should be careful. Here's what we know about Pence, her relationship with Weber, and what happened after Fuller and Pence saw each other again after the show.

Pence and Weber dated in 2012.

Pence, who's a marketing coordinator, kickboxing instructor, and former Miss Teen Virginia, met Weber when the two were living in Los Angeles. They dated for six months, and left on good terms. As we could see in the episode last night (even though we couldn't see her facial expressions), the two hadn't connected in a while but shared a few memories from way back in the day. Pence eventually moved from California to Virginia.

Here's an image of the pair together wayyyy back in 2012:

And this is Pence now:

Pence knew Fuller through mutual friends.

Pence says Fuller actually threatened her the first time they spoke. “Our first encounter was that she told me she was going to slash my tires because I was hanging out with one of her ex-boyfriends,” she told Us Weekly (WOW). She says the two ran in the same circles but weren't friends, and Pence had heard about Fuller being the cause of several local breakups and acting possessively over the guys she liked. Once she was cast on the show: "She just became a very self-centered person and we were all out for our friend’s birthday and she was just acting crazy—just wanting all the attention and it was very distasteful. She was like, 'Do you know who I am?'"

Fuller hasn't commented about Pence's claims, aside from writing on Instagram when the show began airing that she'll choose to defend herself when the time and place is right.

Pence has been speaking about what happened.

While the show was filming, Pence said she reached out to producers about talking to Weber and was initially turned down. Then, she asked if she could come to the event, and they said yes. She spontaneously nabbed Weber as he was headed out from the date, and the rest is history. "'He was definitely upset. Everybody could kind of tell the mood shifted,'" she said, although she noted that Weber told her he trusted her. So it wasn't a planned thing.

As a result of her speaking out, Pence has gotten some criticism from friends and others living in the area, but says that there's been positive feedback as well:

"One of the other wives actually confronted me when I was at a bar in Virginia Beach and I didn’t know that that’s who she was until after the fact. And she was like, 'I just want to thank you so much. You took on a huge burden that a lot of us couldn’t take on because of other reasons,'" Merissa said. "It’s definitely been crazy. I definitely lost friends because everybody hopped on the fame train, which is fine. They’ll figure it out one way or another."

Pence also said she's reached out to Weber and hasn't heard back as of yet—but says she wasn't on the show to win him back, simply to tell the truth to her friend. Fuller hasn't commented on last night's episode (yet) except to say that the rumors about her are false and she'll defend herself when she's ready.

But Fuller and Pence did see each other in a Virginia Beach bar in December, and if Pence is to be believed, Fuller shouted "You're a f*cking loser!" to her across the bar. WOW.

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