Andy DehnartEric Stein and Jessica Hughbanks are still a couple, five weeks after leaving the Big Brother 8 house and reentering the real world.
Their romance is “still going strong,” and Eric and Jessica “plan to continue their long-distance relationship until Jessica graduates, then see what happens,” the Wichita Eagle’s Denise Neil reports. But in the short term, they’ll only see each other on holidays, although Eric just spent a week with Jessica in Kansas.
When they are together, fans respond. “People are always really happy to see that we’re together and that we’re having such a good time with each other,” Eric said. Some of those fans are apparently actually calling them “Jeric” (because smashing two names together is still apparently new and hip) and others are campaigning to get them cast on The Amazing Race.
As to their experience this summer, the paper doesn’t focus much on the game, but both are critical of this season’s winner, Dick Donato. “He was edited in a favorable manner. They made him look heroic. But it wasn’t really like that,” Eric said.
He recently “quit his job at a New York City talent agency, [and] isn’t sure what he’ll do next. He’s taking some time off to decompress and might start looking for work after the first of the year. He hopes to find a job in the entertainment field. Jessica is just one year away from finishing her broadcast journalism degree at Wichita State University, and she’ll go back to school in January,” according to the paper.