It’s been one week since a rather sunburnt Jarrod Woodgate gave Keira Maguire a commitment ring on Bachelor In Paradise, bringing their rocky, on-again, off-again relationship to a solid point.
But it turns out he very nearly didn’t get there.
“I think I declined about five times,” he told PEDESTRIAN.TV this morning. “I didn’t think I was ready for it, I didn’t think even the people out there [a.k.a. the Australian public] would probably… I was more worried about what people were going to think, rather than what I was feeling.”
It was just weeks after Sophie Monk‘s season of The Bachelorette – which saw Jarrod have his heart broken in the final two – that conversations around Paradise begun. (Sophie sent him a message the other day saying she’s happy for him, but the two don’t really speak otherwise.)
But finally, Jarrod relented. “I was like, you know what? I need to get out there, I need to have a holiday, I gotta find out if I am ready to move on or if I can move on, and this is the best way to do it.”
And going inside, he found himself face to face with a number of the blokes he had previously competed against: Blake, Brett, Eden, Luke, Mack & Apollo. (Seriously, what is going on with the men from that season? Did you all have absolutely zero luck on the outside?)
“I was concerned about bumping into a couple of them on the island [*cough* – piss plant Blake – *cough*], but once I got there, saw them, and then we all got to see each other in a relaxed atmosphere compared to what the mansion was… we got to see another side everybody, and it was fantastic,” he said. “We all became really good mates. You don’t have that opportunity in the mansion, because you’re trying to fight for the one girl, but when you’re on an island, you’ve got even amounts of girls to guys, so it’s a lot easier for you to find out more about that person, or build a friendship out of it.”
That being said, Jarrod said it was hard to stay in contact with some of the Paradise people, because information kept leaking to the media. When P.TV spoke to Sam Cochrane earlier this week, he said that the Paradise group chat – which is apparently called “legends” – became a source of tabloid leaking, and Jarrod appeared to back this up.
“Whatever you speak about sometimes gets leaked, and then gets told to publicity,” he said. “I wanted to keep everything a secret and didn’t want to ruin anything. There could have been quite a few people that wanted to give the story away, to get some traction of their own, but I just pulled myself out of that circle. Than I couldn’t blame myself for anything getting out.”
He knows he can come across as quite intense on the show, and he said that’s just how he is. “I can be very full on. My mother still tells me that I’m full on. But I’ve got a lot of drive and determination. I have life goals, and if people get in my way for me to complete those life goals, then that’s there problem, not mine.”
But he and Keira seem happy now, splitting their time between Melbourne and his vineyard and finally ready to walk outside together and like, get breakfast. Drink coffee, read the paper, go shopping, entirely normal couple stuff that you can’t do when you’re both public figures trying to keep the relationship a secret.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiOMI7VH44H/?hl=en&taken-by=jarrodwoodgate
“I think once we both realised that our egos need to be put away, we saw the potential in [our relationship],” he said. “I handled things a bit differently than I normally do, and so did Keira, so it was just a good time for us to really find out what we need to work on, what we don’t need to worry about. We had to go through all the bad eggs to find the good ones.”
And as for the uh, burning question:
“Ha. Yes, there there was sunscreen on Paradise, and yes, I did apply it,” he said, resigned to the inevitable question. “At times I was a bit bad, but it was so hot, it was humid. Apparently, I’ve got Scottish in my blood, so therefore I’m not made for the hot climate. And that’s why I go red when I’m in such heat. It’s not good. It’s not always burn. But I’m actually doing treatments at the moment for my skin. Apparently I’ve got rosacea, which is a mild, mild case of acne, which is just your pigment and what not. You do the treatments and it milds everything down for you.”
There you have it: not always sunburnt.
