Love & tragedy LILY'S PAINFUL JOURNEY

She deserves romance after a run of bad luck

- Cloe Willetts

It’s not like Lily McManus to be hesitant about jumping into a crazy new adventure. But when the Celebrity Treasure Island star was invited to become one of New Zealand’s first Bachelorettes, she wondered if it was too good to be true.

The adventurous blonde has already fallen madly in love on screen once, dating fellow The Bachelor Winter Games contestant Courtney Dober, which ended in 2018. She wasn’t sure that kind of connection could happen to her again.

“I thought maybe I’d used up all my luck and there’d be no chance I could find that a second time,” confesses Auckland-based Lily, 23, who also appeared on the Zac Franich series of The Bachelor NZ. “I usually have the mentality of ‘why the hell not?’, but I guess I was overcomplicating it, not wanting to put myself through that if it wasn’t going to work.”

But a week after she received the casting call, Lily was given a devastating reminder to grasp every opportunity.

“My grandma was diagnosed with bowel cancer and given about a week to live,” shares Lily, who flew to Australia the next day.

“I was sitting on her hospital bed, explaining the show’s concept of two girls and 25 guys, and having to date them,” she recalls.