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It's a shocking turn of events anticipated by only a handful of the most cynical romance-haters: Shayne Lamas, heiress to the Lamas Family acting dynasty, and British Bachelor Guy, a reality TV contestant from England, citing irreconcilable attention whoredom, have announced that their engagement is off. What's more—and we urge you now to take a seat if you aren't doing so already—the two will be going their separate ways forever. From usmagazine.com:

"We tried hard to make it work but we realized that we were both heading in different directions," they said in a statement Thursday. "We truly care about each other and will remain close friends."

Engaged since the May 12 finale of the reality show, the pair have fought off breakup rumors since June when Grant, a global financier, moved out of the actress' L.A. pad.

"I never really moved in there," he tells Us Weekly in its latest issue, on newsstands now.

This news bodes not well for all other series franchisee couples: Anyone who tuned in to the tear-jerking finale—in which BBG dropped to one knee and, finally at a comfortable eye-level with Lamas, slipped an obsessively documented engagement ring upon her finger—would be forgiven for assuming that his swoon-inducing pledges of "I love you. Monkey. Will you marry me?" were nothing but genuine. We pin our competitive-reality-romance hopes now on The Bachelorette's DeAnna Pappas and Jesse Csincsak, praying that when the snowboard instructor scribbled "many years of whip creamy cheesecake" on a list of proposal talking-points, that he indeed meant every word of his decadent, strawberry-topped romantic pledge.