ByteVibes

They shocked fans when they announced their break-up only weeks after The Bachelor finale aired.

Astrophysicist Dr Matt Agnew chose chemical engineer Chelsie McLeod at the final rose ceremony for the 2019 season of the Channel 10 dating show.

But only three months after it aired in September – and six months since filming – the pair called it quits.

McLeod was fairly open about the break-up on her social media at the time, seemingly hinting it was not her choice.

“It’s definitely been rough,” a tearful Chelsie told her Instagram followers during an Instagram Q&A in December. “I do not deal with heartbreak well and yeah, my heart is broken. This sucks.”

McLeod added she’d prefer to keep the details of their split private in an attempt to protect Agnew, leading many to believe it wasn’t mutual.

Agnew released a statement in November saying their relationship hadn’t translated into the real world, before going silent.

Now he’s finally discussed the relationship breakdown on comedian Rosie Waterland’s podcast, Just The Gist, saying it left him devastated.

“That’s life and that’s dating, and relationships sometimes they don’t work out but it’s an experience,” he said.

“You do try and find whatever positive things you can find from it but the experience certainly helped me grow as a person.”

He also revealed he was so anxious about backlash he couldn’t bring himself to release a statement.

“I was dreading it. I put together my words and they were something I gave a lot of thought to to make sure I was conveying my feelings correctly,” he said.

“I actually got a friend to post it because I couldn’t do it myself.

“I didn’t want to deal with comments, I didn’t want to deal with DMs and all that, and I’m really glad I did.

“Everyone says don’t read it (the comments), and you can do it 99 per cent of the time, but you have that one per cent, that one moment of weakness and you read something and you completely capitulate.”

Although McLeod previously said “nothing bad happened” between the pair, she and her co-stars hinted infidelity was at play.

In the wake of the split news, former contestant Jessica Brody shared a photo to Instagram with the caption, “Me vs. Me when he tells me I’m the only girl he’s talking to,” with two different facial expressions, to which McLeod replied, “Triggered”.

Runner-up Abbie Chatfield also had tongues wagging when she put a meme on her Instagram stories which read, “Remember, you’re not the only one he’s texting”.

Rumours began swirling the pair may have been headed for a break-up in October when Agnew left the country after they had done the post Bachelor media rounds.

He jetted to Dubai and Scotland to visit family without his new girlfriend, and the pair were hardly pictured together in the weeks afterwards.

McLeod took to Instagram while Agnew was away to say, “Remember that time we got to hang out? Maybe you should come back now so we can do that again”.

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