reality tv

9 months ago, Australia fell in love with Ciarran Stott. Tonight, he might break our hearts.

To catch up on all the Bachelor in Paradise Australia 2020 recaps and gossip, check out Mamamia’s recaps and visit our Bachelor in Paradise hub page.

Approximately nine months ago, Australia fell in love with a British man in a leopard print necktie.

Our love was really cemented thanks to a bunch of grapes, and not a lot else, and our hearts broken when he left our lives (and Angie Kent's, but also... ours) on a very sad episode of The Bachelorette.

Months later, Ciarran Stott is about to reappear on our TV screens for Bachelor in Paradise, sans neck tie, but once again covered by grapes, and we are just a bit excited.

Grab a mango daiquiri and enjoy the Bachelor in Paradise trailer. Post continues below video.


Video via Network 10.

This is everything we know about him, ahead of the show's premiere.

On Angie and Carlin.

Mamamia spoke to Ciarran ahead of Paradise's premiere on Wednesday, and he said he was sad to hear about Angie Kent and Carlin Sterritt's recent breakup.

"I chat to Carlin every now and then but yeah, a bit sad for them," he said. "I wish them well with what they want to do."

Ciarran said he occasionally thought about his exit from The Bachelorette following the death of his grandmother. At the time of his exit, he thought he could've been the one to make it to the end.

"But I didn't," he reflected, "So I can't really dwell on it anymore."

Instead, he was looking to have a bit of fun on Bachelor in Paradise, "give it a crack and see what happens".

Bachelor in Paradise.

Ciarran told Manchester Evening News he was actually a bit worried about how Australia will react to his BIP appearance, and uh oh...

"I don't regret anything but when Bachelor in Paradise comes out, I probably won't get the best edit ever," he said.

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"I think I'll go from the sweetheart of Australia to the bad boy of Australia so that won't be good.

"It's called Bachelor in Paradise but I went on and it was like Ciarran in Paradise. Every girl took me on a date and I was absolutely loving it."

Ahead of Paradise's premiere this week, Mamamia asked Ciarran why he thought Australia's perception of him may change. Did he act differently on Paradise? We received a very cryptic answer. 

"I wasn't different, I just feel like I brought a bit of the reality to the reality TV world," he said, describing his time filming as having both "ups and downs". Hmmm.

Ciarran said he initially thought the show would have more Love Island vibes, but learned it was more about looking for lasting love.

He said he mostly got along with everyone on the cast, and it was fun to hang out in Fiji with his mates.

The series' promos do seem to show how popular he was with the women, at least initially.

From what we can tell, he goes on a date with Abbie Chatfield, as well as Jessica Brody, who he then kisses in the rain. It is a lot.

Image: Network 10. 

Ciarran was somewhat thrown in the deep end from the beginning: His ex-girlfriend Renee Barrett (from Matt Agnew's Bachie season) was also in Paradise, and it also doesn't look like his time on the show is going to go smoothly.

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A short snippet shows the cast members sitting down at the dinner table one night and as the camera is focused on distressed-looking Ciarran, a female voiceover (as many times as we've listened we still can't tell who it is) says, "There's so much he's lied about. He's played everybody". 

"If you want me to spill the beans, I'll spill the beans. And you're going to look like a piece of sh*t, not me," the unidentified female voice says.

Then Ciarran abruptly exits the dinner party and says, "I'm going". 

Whoa.

At the end of 2019, there were lots of rumours he ended up with Kiki Morris from Richie Strahan’s season of The Bachelor after the show. They were seen holding hands at a birthday celebration for Ciarran's Bachelorette mate Jackson Garlick and appeared in each other's (and Timm's) Instagram stories but that has stopped in recent months.

We don't know how BIP will end for Ciarran, but he has said it works out very well for some of the contestants.

"If the paparazzi catch you out with someone off the show, you get in trouble. You have to hide behind closed doors, you want to do normal things but you feel as if you can't properly live your life," he told Manchester Evening News.

"You've got people in relationships from it who've had to hide it the whole time and it was filmed in like October/November."

'Fabulously British'.

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Ciarran, 26, is originally from Bolton, in Manchester, England, and moved to Perth as a 12-year-old to live with his dad and step mum. 

He later moved to Darwin, and was a rifleman in the army before The Bachelorette.


Ciarran left the show despite being the favourite to win Angie's heart after finding out his grandmother had died.

In November following his exit, Ciarran told Mamamia he hadn't been watching the show because reliving the events of a few months earlier was pretty tough.

"Obviously [watching] it would bring back memories and emotions," he said. "I just watched a little bit then and it was pretty heartbreaking watching it, but it is what it is. I can't change what happened, it was a bit surreal."

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The decision to leave was not an easy one for Ciarran, who thought about it over a number of days and believed he had the strongest connection with Angie at the time.

"It was all very difficult to do that because I felt like I was the frontrunner," he said.

"I just had enough with the drama at the cocktail party, and I was like 'I can't be bothered, I'm just going to bounce' but Angie saw me and was like 'What's going on?' and I told her everything... She was the same, family comes first."

His roomie.

Okay, if this isn't the greatest thing you've heard in a while...

Ciarran and Bachelorette runner-up Timm Hanly, a.k.a Australia's two greatest long-haired loves of 2019, are bestmates and roommates in Melbourne.






View this post on Instagram









Spillin the tea ☕️🐸

A post shared by  Stotty (@ciarranstott) on

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Ciarran made the move to Victoria from Darwin after Bachie ended, and the pair are living their best lives with lots of banter and trips to the salon together (I'm not being facetious, they legit get their hair done at the same time). 

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For the Melbourne Pride March in February, they got fully dressed up in drag to walk the parade, and in a video on their joint YouTube channel they visit a costume shop to find Timm a crab costume, and the end result looked very much like something... else.

An icon. Image: Network 10. 

The confidence.

One of the things the public loved so much about Ciarran was how he was so unapologetically himself, and totally unbothered by outdated, boring gender stereotypes.

He:

  • Is not ashamed of taking care of his appearance
  • Embraces his love of fashion and expressing himself through it, especially if that means wearing a leopard print neck tie
  • Wears eyeliner just because he... wants to
  • Is open about having had a nose job
  • Is a supportive ally to marginalised communities and worked at a gay nightclub in Darwin.

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Also, this part of the article is just an excuse to show some of the greatest men's fashion moments on Australian television. 


We are excited for the tropical fashion when BIP airs.

Bachelor in Paradise premieres on Wednesday, July 15 at 7.30pm on Channel 10.

This article was originally published on June 17 and has been updated.

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Feature image: Instagram.

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