The period following every reality dating show will likely see the breakdown of a once-happy couple. And now, it seems the last lovebirds to leave The Bachelorette Australia have also decided to call it quits.
Darvid Garayeli, the winner of last year’s season of the reality show, has announced that he and Australia’s first bisexual, Indigenous leading lady Brooke Blurton have chosen to go their separate ways, just one month after the finale aired on TV screens across the nation.
Taking to Instagram stories on January 2, Darvid shared a statement to announce The Bachelorette stars’ split.
“Starting the new year off with an end to a chapter and hopefully the beginning of another,” Darvid wrote. “Unfortunately Brooke and I have parted ways.
“Whilst we both genuinely thought we were each others person, things change and that’s okay. Please respect our privacy and that at the end of the day we are both just people with real feelings.
“Thank you so much for being considerate, alot (sic) of lessons learned.”
However, Brooke didn’t share a similar announcement, as many famous couples typically sync up their posts. In fact, it was until hours later that she broke her silence about the news, making it clear that his statement left her ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘surprised’.
Taking to her Instagram Stories, Brooke shared her understanding of the situation with a lengthy statement.
“Hey beautiful people, before my phone blows up. I just want to say right now I’m finding this really quite overwhelming and just as surprising to me as you guys,” she wrote.
“I just woke up to the news. It was definitely agreed to part ways. I just wanted to do it privately, amicably and respectfully.
“This is not how and what I expected to be doing right now so as you can imagine, this is all a lot.
“You will all have your judgements and have your say but there is a lot going on in my world and D’s of course. So I again just ask you be kind, we are human,” she continued.
“I really do hope you respect some part of some what ‘privacy’ we do have right now because like I said, this was a surprise to wake up to just as much as it was for you guys.”
Now, Brooke has taken to Instagram again to share more detail about their breakup. On January 13, she shared a lengthy statement on her Stories, explaining exactly why she and Darvid went their separate ways.
“I’ll be the first to say that it was my choice to end the relationship and I had been thinking about it for a bit towards the end. My reasons for that are completely valid to me,” she wrote.
“I had been unhappy for a bit and it wasn’t just solely because of the relationship. I have a lot of respect for Darvid and what he gave up for me to be IN the relationship but it seems that we both lost ourselves along the way.
“We had a very real love in a very unreal situation but we equally had A LOT of pressure on us too, which I felt I carried every day.”
The rest of the statement saw Brooke open up about the impact being on The Bachelorette, and how her sense of self was effected by it.
“At the start of the show, I was the best version of myself and when the show ended and my sister died, I became by worst and saddest.
“I definitely put my heart and soul into the show and to represent myself, my family and the minority groups that I represent, solely with the upmost integrity, respect and love. But the person who I forgot to love the most amongst that was myself.”
Brooke goes onto explain that she still has a lot of love for Darvid and they are “as amicable as you can be during a healing process”.
“I still love him dearly and have no regrets choosing him. I just wish the world was a little bit more gentle to us in the time we had.”
Addressing Darvid’s decision to announce the break-up without consulting her, she described the event as leaving her “shocked”.
“But Darvid had every right to make that decision, his platform, he can choose that for himself”.
Either way, here’s hoping that the new year will see both Darvid and Brooke find the love and happiness they’re looking for.