Bachelor winner Laura Byrne admits she got ‘cold feet’, pulled out of show

Laura Byrne won the heart of Bachelor Matty J back in 2017, but the reality star has made a candid confession about how she felt behind the scenes.

Matty Johnson and Laura Byrne are the pin-up Bachelor success story.

The Sydney-based couple, who met on the Channel 10 dating series in 2017, have since welcomed two little girls and are currently finalising plans for their November wedding, but their enduring love story almost didn’t happen.

In an incredibly surprising confession, 36-year-old Byrne admits in her new book with Brittany Hockley, We Love Love, that she got cold feet and pulled out of the show when she was due to start production.

Byrne went into further detail about the incident on news.com.au’s I’ve Got News For You podcast, telling host Andrew Bucklow that she had a “complete change of heart” and didn’t rock up for filming.

Matty J and Laura Byrne are parents to Marlie-Mae and Lola, and are preparing to say ‘I do’ later this year.

“If you’re selected, you get given a time and location, and it’s a secret time and secret location, to try and throw off paparazzi,” Byrne explained.

“Mine was a pick-up location in Alexandria in some random park at 3pm, and you’re supposed to rock up with all your suitcases and a bus will come and collect you.

“And I remember 3pm came and went and I was sitting at home and hadn’t packed a bag. I just had a complete change of heart. I really didn’t want to do it, I was worried about what it would look like vying for a man’s attention on a reality TV show.”

Byrne said she then got a call from producers, who told her she had until 10am the next day to think the decision through.

“[They said] ‘If you change your mind, your last opportunity to join the experiment is to come to Ultimo Hotel by 10am tomorrow’,” Byrne said.

“I went to bed that night, I hadn’t packed or anything. And this sounds so ‘woo woo’ but I had a dream. I woke up at about two-thirty in the morning. And I can’t remember the specifics [of the dream] but I had this feeling that something really huge and life changing was waiting for me.

“I woke my housemates up, and we packed my bags and then at 6 o’clock in the morning they drove me to Ultimo Hotel and I was gone for three and a half months.”

Matty gave his final rose to Laura in the 2017 Bachelor finale. Picture: Hanna Lassen/WireImage

Byrne was speaking to I’ve Got News For You to promote her new book, We Love Love, which she co-wrote with fellow Bachelor alum and Life Uncut podcast co-host, Brittany Hockley.

The book, which is out tomorrow, is “an encyclopaedia of life as Britt and Laura have lived it, full of hard-won wisdom, hilarious anecdotes, serious challenges and refreshing honesty”.

Elsewhere in the news.com.au interview, the duo also spilt some behind the scenes secrets from The Bachelor, and while they said it was mostly “unscripted”, the pair admitted there was some producer interference with how the scenes play out.

“At the end of every single day, they’ll say to you, ‘OK this is your intimacy time. You have to tell them how you feel,’” Byrne said.

Byrne said the ‘intimacy’ moments were often structured. Picture: Supplied/Ten.

“[And] The cocktail parties go for a really long time. Sometimes they finish at two, three in the morning. And then what often happens is the remaining girls, as soon as the cocktail party finishes, they’ll tell you to go inside, put on your day clothes, and you have to pretend like it’s the next day because they need to get some scenes done. So you’ll be sitting around a coffee table and it’s literally two in the morning.”

Byrne added: “But they’ve got it all brightly lit up and you’re sitting there going, ‘Oh the cocktail party last night was crazy,’ but really, you’re so f**king tired because it’s two in the morning. And if you look closely, everyone’s still got their eyelashes on and their makeup is still done.”

Originally published as Bachelor winner Laura Byrne admits she got ‘cold feet’, pulled out of show