Bachelor winner and mum of one Alex Nation has revealed falling pregnant at 18 meant she became the subject of judgemental comments from both friends and strangers.

In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, the 27-year-old said although many of her friends at the time struggled with the idea that she was pregnant, she persisted with the pregnancy and with her relationship with her son’s father, Joel.

However, perhaps more confrontingly, it was the response of strangers and their desire to judge her without knowing her that she recalls the most.

A photo posted by Alex Nation (@alexandranation) on

Nov 14, 2016 at 12:21am PST

“I had women go up to my mum when we were in the supermarket, and they would be like, ‘Oh that is a real shame’,” she tells the publication.

“And my mum would be like, ‘No she is fine’.”

People also doubted her ability to make something of herself with a child entering her orbit at such a young age.

“I found that people who I would catch up with every now and then were saying, ‘She is throwing her life away, she won’t amount to anything’,” she recalls. (Post continues after gallery.)

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The struggles of a stormtrooper are real ????

“Even my mum’s friends were like, ‘Oh, what is she going to do with her life?'”

The 25-year-old acknowledges raising Elijah wasn’t without difficulties, recalling struggling with motherhood just weeks after Elijah was born.

“When Elijah was probably three-weeks-old, I remember being exhausted … I said to Joel, ‘I am so tired, I just can’t do this. I can’t do this’,” she recalls.

Nation parted ways with Elijah’s father before their son turned two, but she acknowledges it was a decision riddled with guilt and fear about what a split family would mean.

A photo posted by Alex Nation (@alexandranation) on

Jun 4, 2015 at 7:29pm PDT

“There was a battle where we were asking ourselves, ‘Do you stick it out and not be with the one who is your soul mate?” she told the Daily Mail.

“There was a strain on us individually because you feel guilty for your child that you are separating.

“Joel and I will always have love for each other because we share a beautiful child. That will never go away.”

The reality star’s relationship with her ex-husband has been the subject of much speculation since she was thrust into the public eye, but it’s a relationship where they now, she insists, “co-parent beautifully together”.