Grace has broken her silence on why she was so “shocked” to be sent home by Farmer Zac on Farmer Wants A Wife.
The environmental scientist, 25, left during the black-tie dinner after Zac, 24, picked Maya and Mieke as his final two.
Speaking exclusively to New Idea about her exit, Grace reveals Zac was “incoherent” as she left, leaving her uncertain whether she was actually being sent home.
“I wasn’t blindsided, but I was very surprised. It took me a while to work out what was happening – that it was going to be me going home that night,” she tells us.
“I was honestly like numb. I don’t think I cried.
“I was just sitting there, and he was just sobbing and sobbing.”
“I remember he was like not making any sense with what he was saying. He was basically incoherent.”
“I remember having to ask him, ‘Are you sending me home right now? Because I can’t tell. So it was pretty messy, but I just felt so numb and very shocked and very confused because I was like, ‘Well, if this is making you this upset, why are you sending me home?'”
Grace’s surprise at her departure was apparent to viewers, and she tells us that she wasn’t expecting it because she hadn’t realised how strong Zac and Mieke’s connection had become.
“I’d seen a lot of Maya and Zac’s, and I knew they got on really well,” she explains.
“It was really obvious, around the house and things like that.”
“Mieke and Zac’s connection was a bit more subtle. I hadn’t noticed it as much.”
Grace says that she realised halfway through the black-tie dinner that she might be going home when Zac made a comment about not knowing her very well.
“I just thought for the first time, ‘Oh, this could actually really definitely be me going home’,” she shares.
“I thought it was gonna be either Mieke or me just because Maya had a really strong connection by that point.”
“I felt like Maya was pretty safe at that dinner. And then, maybe halfway through the night, I was like, ‘Wait, this could be worse than I thought. ‘
Grace admits that things could have turned out differently for her if she’d been given a second date.
“Definitely, time was the most important thing on the farm,” she says.
“I always feel like if I’d had that family pick date, I definitely would have been in with a much higher chance, and things might have been a lot different.
“It was really hard because by [the black-tie dinner], it had been like three or four weeks since that first date, which, if you think about it in the real world, you probably wouldn’t have waited that long for a second date!”
Grace says she began to feel quite “insecure” in her connection with Zac because they didn’t get a second date, finding it difficult to enter the black-tie dinner because of that.
“I think I almost tricked myself into thinking the connection was a little bit stronger, because I just wanted to come across as confident in myself rather than feeling insecure and worried,” she adds.
“I don’t really know what it would have been like if we’d actually had the chance again.”
Grace describes the most difficult part of FWAW as competing with the other women, saying it was difficult not to draw comparisons.
“I normally think I’m quite a resilient person, but I found it a lot harder than I thought I would,” she admits.
Though she doesn’t regret signing up for the Channel Seven show, she says she’ll be leaving reality TV in her past and has no plans for another dating show.
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