Brittany Hockley and Nick Cummins on The Bachelor. Photo / Channel 10
Brittany Hockley and Nick Cummins on The Bachelor. Photo / Channel 10
Bachelor contestant Brittany Hockley will go down in reality TV history for two reasons.
Firstly, she and fellow finalist Sophie Tieman were part of the only Bachelor season where the suitor — in this case Nick Cummins — didn't pick a winner.
The second reason is all down to how Hockley responded to Cummins when she found out neither she or Tieman had been chosen.
"I have been told that I was the only person to never cry on The Bachelor," she told news.com.au.
"Which I think is funny because I definitely cried on my own, in my own time."
A year on from the The Bachelor's most explosive season, Hockley has given her side on the rumours about Cummins and second runner-up Brooke Blurton as well as what she really thought of the sports star's controversial decision to go on a dating show and then pick no one.
'I DEFINITELY WAS HEARTBROKEN'
Last year more than 1.68 million people watched Cummins reject first Tieman and then Hockley, saying he wasn't ready to be in a relationship.
While the Honey Badger was slammed for his decision, Hockley, in particular, was praised for her stoic response to being publicly turned down on TV.
But Hockley's decision to not show emotion was a practical one, and she was concerned about how Tieman would feel about the rejection.
"At that moment I just thought, just keep it together, accept that this has happened for a reason — I'm pretty practical like that," Hockley said.
"People have asked me since why didn't you ask him more about why or try and change his mind.
"I think if someone has just said to you that it's not you or you're not enough, there's not much you can do with that. You just need to accept it and get the hell out of there and deal with it later."
Hockley admitted it had been hard to get over the sense "that I had been single for so long for this reason," a feeling that had been fostered while filming the show.
"I was definitely upset, very upset. I did think that he and I obviously had something more than he thought we had, and that was really hard to accept," she said.
"Because we have so much in common, we were born a few weeks apart in the same hospital in the same town.
"There was a lot that Australia didn't see between he and I actually, and I guess they keep that hidden because of the ending. It wouldn't have made sense."
Looking back on it now, Hockley says she was heartbroken.
"Oh, I definitely was, and I think my problem is I'm very thick-skinned, and I'm a very strong, independent woman, and I always have been. And I think that maybe I didn't really show my emotions as much on the show as I should have," she said.
Nick Cummins controversially dumped Brittany Hockley in the series finale. Photo / Channel 10
"I kept it quite to myself. I've always sort of been that person, I always try and be the pillar of strength for everybody else, and I was sort of like that for a lot of girls in the house."
In an interview with Stellar last month, Cummins said filming The Bachelor had been "a tough place to be in mentally" because of the show's intense environment and high emotional stakes.
"The experience I had (on The Bachelor) was really quite challenging for me, and I really hit some levels. But I think I matured quite a bit, so I don't regret it at all," he said.
'HE MESSAGED EVERYONE'
Earlier this year Blurton — who left the show after making it to the top three — came forward to claim she received multiple text messages from Cummins after the show wrapped up filming.
But Hockley says Blurton wasn't alone in getting these messages.
"Oh yeah, he messaged everyone, he definitely didn't just message Brooke," she told news.com.au. "He messaged me, he messaged Soph, I think even quite a lot of the other girls."
Hockley admits getting the messages did give her false hope about her future with Cummins, and she thought at the very least they would stay in contact with each other.
"Of course (it gave false hope). If anything, I thought that at least (we'd be) good friends in life, but it has definitely not turned out that way. He's just wanted nothing to do with the show at all," she said.
"So he checked up on us at the start, and then I checked up on him actually when he was getting some grief just to make sure he was OK. But other than that, we've just sort of let it go and both accepted it for what it was."
But things became hard when the series aired and viewers began incorrectly earmarking Hockley as the winner, unaware her heart had been broken.
"Apparently for whatever reason I had been the favourite on Sportsbet before it had started airing. I don't know whether that was a leak somewhere or where it came from, but it made it very hard because everyone had reported that I had won," Hockley said.
"Everyone in my life was just so happy for me because I know I've had such a tumultuous love life."
Unlike other contestants last year, Hockley had nothing bad to say about Channel 10's treatment of her, praising their publicists and psychological support.
However, she does feel her bubbly personality sometimes appeared more "subdued" on screen, and a late-season discussion between her and Cass Wood was made to seem like a fight when it wasn't.
Both contestants were seen exchanging what seemed like tense words when The Bachelor mansion discovered Wood had previously dated Cummins.
"No one in the house knew that Cass had dated Nick, no one. And I think Australia thought we all knew … that was a really tough time, that edit made me look quite horrible, and that's not how the conversation went," Hockley said.
"But that's just part of it unfortunately, and it was very minor in terms of my whole time on the show."
Now 12 months on from The Bachelor. Hockley says life has for the most part has returned to normal.
