After last night’s dramatic Bachelor In Paradise rose ceremony, which accounted for at least 50 percent of the tears on this show to date, Nina Rollesten has dished on just went on with her and Eden, her and Daniel, and who she’s still talking to after the show (hint: not Eden).
The 30-year-old Brisbane gal said she was “completely blindsided” by Eden’s decision to give his rose to Elora, and that she was so upset by last night’s episode she wasn’t able to sleep.
Here’s what she had to say about Eden, Daniel, and the whole Paradise experience.
PEDESTRIAN.TV: So did watch the episode last night?
Nina: I did
What was going through your head as you watched that back?
Look it was pretty difficult to watch obviously. It was filmed quite a while ago, so you sort of have a memory of it and then you question, how much do you really remember and what was really said, and then you watch it and go, ‘Oh yep, that’s exactly how I remember it.’
During the rose ceremony, what was going through your mind then?
So much, to be honest. Eden ended our conversation with, ‘You’re my girl’, [and] it’s sort of like, okay, that’s a little bit of a contradiction to what’s happening now. So I guess him being called out first, and then not giving me a rose, I knew pretty quickly that I’d be going home.
You and Eden did seem to pair off very quickly, and then it seemed to be over very quickly.
I was literally the first person that Eden pulled aside when he got into Paradise, he’d probably been there all of 15 minutes before he made his first move. And it really was instant from that moment. I didn’t really invest myself in anyone else, and neither did he. And it was incredible. Just spending all day every day together. We’d go kayaking in the morning, just have breakfast, lunch and dinner together, I mean they showed us having afternoon naps together. It was really a beautiful experience, and it turned sour really, really quickly, and I was completely blindsided.
You were quite clear about not wanting to be kissing people until the end.
For me, being in Paradise is an experience where you can get really caught up in the moment. You’re in this beautiful location, you’ve got a gorgeous man on your arm, I think it’s very easy to get carried away, and then very quickly new people come in and then all of a sudden people’s attentions shift really quickly. There has been some people in there that have kissed three or four people and they’re still not paired up with somebody, and I just didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to really invest my time in somebody, and once we’d made that decision that this was a relationship we’d want to continue outside of Paradise, then that would be the person that I’d share my first kiss with.
Have you spoken to Eden since?
Look, we had minimal contact, and it just gets really hard, I think there’s still a lot of emotions involved, and obviously feelings were very genuine between the two of us, so it is kind of like a real break-up, with all the intensity and pressure of being in that situation. It is quite difficult when we do chat, so we sort of just… don’t.
You went on a date with Daniel, at one point it seemed you were quite into him. You said last night that you were going to shoot him a message when you got out of Paradise. Is that the case? Have you guys been talking?
Yeah, so Daniel and I did have an incredible date. It was really disappointing to see how it was portrayed on the show, because it was such an amazing experience that we had together, and they really showed it to be him creeping on me the whole time, which it just really wasn’t. But I did say that I wanted to get in contact with him after Paradise, as I did say I wanted to get in contact with everyone who’d left, but of course they choose very carefully what goes to air. I did make contact with Daniel and we do talk all the time.
Is that a potential romantic thing developing?
I think between Daniel and I, that chemistry that we had in Paradise is still there, but at the end of the day we’re on other ends of the world. We did have a lot of of-camera time on our single date, that evacuation of that property actually turned quite serious and it took many many hours for us to get out of there, and all of that was off-camera time that we really got to know each other, and I got to see the real Daniel, as opposed to the show pony Daniel.
How does ‘real Daniel’ differ to ‘show pony Daniel’?
He is so supportive. I have not been to sleep yet since last night’s episode because I’ve just been so upset and he’s the person who I’ve been on the phone to all night, with his support and his kind words, and just advice. Obviously he’s been through it many times. He just has this really deep level of himself and we spoke about a lot of things, he really let me in about his dad, who unfortunately passed away four weeks ago. There’s just that really, really beautiful side of him that people don’t see. That’s what made it so hard, is I did get to see that side of him on our single date that no one else was exposed to.
Do you think he’s been misrepresented? Or is it a case of, well, he’s obviously playing things up for the camera.
Yep. [To the second.]
Not to stick the knife in at all, but obviously he did have connections at one point with Laurina and with Keira. Was it hard watching the shows and being like, oh, damn, you were saying other things to people as well.
Yeah look there was quite a few abusive text messages sent to him during that episode. Again, it just showed me the type of person he is again. Obviously with the time difference, while I’m watching the show he’s asleep, and the second he received those messages and saw how upset I was, he was straight on Facetime, just hearing me out, understanding how it would have made me feel – and that’s just not the person that we saw in Paradise, but that is the real side of him.
So obviously Daniel said some very forward, very sexually aggressive things. I think he said “I want to take that white dress off you” at one point, and then Eden’s going, “I want to be wanted, I want to be able to kiss you”. I was wondering if you would chat about the differences between their approaches to romance on the show, and why saying these very aggressive, but very flirty things in that situation is okay, but asking ,”Why won’t you kiss me” is not?
It wasn’t a question about Eden saying, “Why won’t you kiss me?”. It was an ultimatum that he gave me: to get intimate or get sent home. And then being told that I’m selfish for having values for not wanting to get intimate. Whereas Daniel is someone who is quite sexual and he’s very open about it, but the second I told him those values it never once got mentioned again. He never tried to kiss me, he never commented on the fact that I wouldn’t be kissing everyone, he never made me feel uncomfortable about it, and up until that conversation, Eden hadn’t made me feel uncomfortable about it either, but to end up giving me an ultimatum and telling me that I’m selfish because I won’t get intimate is just really quite a disgusting thing to say to someone.
Apart from Daniel, do you stay in contact with anyone from Paradise, and are you seeing anyone at the moment?
So I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, I’m definitely still single. And yeah, I do, I stay in contact with pretty much everybody except for the persons I didn’t get to meet obviously. Eden and I and Elora and I certainly aren’t in regular contact or anything like that. But you know, Tara‘s coming to Brisbane this weekend to take me out for a girl’s night, to cheer me up and my first single weekend out on the town.
