Love Blooms For Lily I've Found Mr Right At Last

How the Bachelor babe found her soulmate.

- Leena Tailor

After The Bachelor New Zealand, Lily McManus seriously wondered if she’d ever find true love again. She’d spent three years looking for “the one” and came close on the romantic reality series, making it to the last two vying for that final rose – then ultimately leaving with a buddy but not a boyfriend in Zac Franich.

When 21-year-old Lily jetted to the States to take part in spin-off series The Bachelor Winter Games, she remained quietly convinced she wouldn’t meet any decent guys.

So when the Australian-born snowboard instructor found herself falling for The Bachelorette Australia’s Courtney Dober within 48 hours of her arrival, she had to pinch herself. “I was like, ‘This is so good! Where’s the catch?’” she recalls, talking to Woman’s Day in her new Los Angeles home.

“From personal experience, something always goes wrong, so I kept wondering, ‘Why is it so perfect?’ I didn’t believe I could find the perfect story here. Everyone else was having drama and issues, and I was so happy, I felt out of place!”

It was on day one, as the contestants settled into a cosy lodge in snowy Vermont, that Lily and Courtney – a 31-year-old Australian TV host and producer – found themselves enjoying a “weird little banter”.

Conversation flowed easily and the following day, they became engrossed in more “good chats”, before sneaking away from cameras.

“We were hanging in this stairwell, then suddenly he just planted one on me,” reveals Lily. “I didn’t see it coming, but the fact he did it off camera showed he genuinely wanted to kiss me and cemented the fact he wasn’t in this for the show, the cameras or to increase his social following.”