Having your heart broken is one thing, but having it broken on national television — and to have your grief a water-cooler talking point for the next week or so — is in a realm of its own.
This is the scenario Nikki Gogan finds herself in now.
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In the leadup to tonight’s finale, Nikki spoke to Mamamia about how it felt to be taken all the way to the final two, only to realise she wasn’t to be the girl standing at the end.
Though the finale was heartbreaking,would she still would she have preferred to have been sent home earlier to ease the heartbreak just a little bit?
"I would want to be as far as I possibly could [in the competition], even if that meant I was runner up," she told Mamamia.
Though she spent months in the competition pouring her heart into the dates, and her love into Richie, Nikki said she would not change a thing, nor would she wish it ended sooner.
"I think with Sam [Frost] coming out later after her season and saying that Richie was the real second choice... I’m sure Richie would have preferred to be chosen second and to have been able to be in a position to just try and handle that," she explained.
More than that, Nikki says she hopes Richie's experience with The Bachelorette last year would mean he was in more of a position to bring the "real" final two to the finale.
"I would hope that might have impacted on his journey [this time] and that the runner up was the real second choice."
Despite how tonight's episode concluded, Nikki said she had absolutely no hard feelings towards Alex, and that seeing much of what was written about her throughout the show was difficult to watch.
"I care about her. So to see things written about Richie or Alex or any one of the girls, I know them as people and I genuinely care about them, so to see things having been written that are just straight up not true, that hurts my feelings as well," Nikki said.
"It sucks to hear those things about people that you genuinely care about."
Nikki also spoke of her close bond with Alex, and their fellow contestants.
"[Alex and I] will just have this unique bond that no one else could possibly understand. This will forever hold us together. I love her to bits and no matter what, I want her to be happy and I’m sure she would say the same," she said.
