The Bachelor Australia, dubbed The Bachelors for 2023, is all over for another season and the winners have been crowned.
For the final episode, the remaining contestants included Leah, Lauren, Jess, Abigail, Angela and Alésia.
In the dramatic final moments, the Italian stallion Thomas Malucelli declared his love for Leah with a Larsen Jewellery pale blue sapphire diamond ring, with three pear-shaped diamonds.
“I literally cannot thank you enough for simply being who you are,” he said. “Leah I am absolutely in love with you. I love everything about you… I know that you’re the one. I want to experience every day of my life with you… I want to create life with you. I’m so blessed I found you. Will you marry me?”
Leah replied with a vehement: “Yes; absolutely.”
Meanwhile, Jed McIntosh gushed over Alésia with a Larsen Jewellery champagne yellow gold ring with three diamonds.
“I’ve completely fallen in love with you… I’ve honestly never felt the way that I feel about you with anyone else in my life,” he told her.
Despite Alésia making it clear she wasn’t ready to get engaged, Jed still got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.
Clearly perplexed, Alésia stumbled with an answer, prompting Jed to quickly stand back up and say that he wasn’t “rushed with (his) feelings,” essentially taking back the proposal and saying the ring was merely a symbol of commitment.
“I am falling for you,” Alésia assured him, saying she will put the ring on any finger that he wanted, as long as he wasn’t proposing just yet.
“I’ll ask you again one day,” Jed said.
As for Felix Von Hofe’s winner, despite her previous open relationship with Damien, the basketballer told Jess that “life’s about taking risks,” while confessing his love.
Though, he didn’t present his Larsen Jewellery emerald-cut morganite rose gold ring, featuring seven cut diamonds.
This season, after many calls to re-vamp and modernise The Bachelor franchise, Channel Ten decided to shake the dating show up and give us not one, but three bachelors (albeit straight and white), and a polyamorous relationship, (albeit with contentious representation).
But at least there was some androgynous dressing, right? From Jed. He rocked nail polish and bold outfits while denouncing toxic masculinity. Progressive. Nice. But even that caused backlash – not only from some viewers, but from within the mansion.
Yep, it turns out an intense fight broke out behind the scenes with regards to the drummer’s sexuality, leading to very nasty group chat messages.
“(The messages) genuinely started because somebody was talking about Jed’s sexuality, and they weren’t talking about it in a very nice way,” evictee Jasmine Absolom told WHO of the drama.
She continued: “It was a very bad comment. It just was very uncomfortable and some of the girls were laughing about it, I stepped in and just said that it wasn’t okay. It’s just disrespectful. That’s how the b-tchiness got to the point that it did.
“I could have calmed the situation down at some point, but I think I was also so heated at the time that we were having this fight that I wasn’t letting off. But it’s not nice to make fun of someone’s sexuality, and if you’re gonna do that, I’m gonna call it out, and if you’re gonna get upset and throw a tantrum over the fact that you got caught out doing something wrong, then that’s on you.”
This year, The Bachelor debuted to a record-low 439,000 viewers, with many calling to end the show. Will the dating show take a hiatus? We’ll have to wait and see.
Can’t get enough Bachelor content? Check out the links below!
EXCLUSIVE: Jasmine details the intense fight over Jed’s sexuality
EXCLUSIVE: Tim Robards shares his thoughts on the new Bachelors
EXCLUSIVE: Villian Tash exposes The Bachelors’ fake scandal
Inside Jessica Navin’s divisive open relationship
Everything we know about Thomas Malucelli
Everything we know about Felix Von Hofe
Everything we know about Jed McIntosh
Everything we know about Krystal Thomas
Everything we know about Tilly Skok
A definitive list of the best Bachelor transformations
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