Jimmy & Holly On Life After ‘The Bachelor’

Last night The Bachelor 2021 came to an end, with Jimmy Nicholson choosing Holly Kingston as his forever love.

Jimmy and Holly were a slower burn throughout the season, though she captivated him from her entrance taking him on their first date straight away to a makeshift wine bar.

From then, it was paddleboarding with Jimmy’s dogs, hikes, and then finally Jimmy pulled out all stops with a romantic flight over Uluru in the finale episode.

After breaking things off with Brooke Cleal in last night’s finale, Jimmy could finally tell Holly he loved her in a romantic moment.

Jimmy has found the one who makes his heart soar! #TheBachelorAU pic.twitter.com/tnnBdFFkcl

— The Bachelor Australia 🌹 (@TheBachelorAU) September 2, 2021

With the show done and dusted, we chatted with the lovebirds about their time on The Bachelor, Jimmy’s mum always being right, and what an engagement could look like down the track…

On whether they watched the show back together and if anything shocked them:

Jimmy: “We didn’t watch it together, maybe one? Two including last night.”

Holly: “We got to watch the lovely Steph date together, which was funny. We watched that with many, many glasses of red. No, we’ve been in lockdown, and we haven’t been able to see each other that much, it’s been a lot of FaceTiming, we FaceTime every episode, we had a lot of laughs throughout the season.

There was nothing that was all that surprising, to be honest we were very wary going in that this is an interesting way to start a new relationship and on our first catch up we had a few wines and spent some hours talking about everything that I needed to know, and what I may see. Jimmy has been super open and honest with me. The girl drama was hard to watch back, but surprisingly watching him kiss a whole lot of girls wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. We managed to laugh our way through it.”

Jimmy: “I just wanted to go in and bat for Holly when [all the drama was happening]. I was watching it and Holly was there apologising to me about perhaps her delivery, and I was like no ‘why are you apologising to me! you didn’t do anything wrong!’. But credit to her, she was still doing the right thing after being thrown under the bus by a few not-so-nice girls, so that was tough for me to watch because I wanted to be able to defend her.”

On the scene where Jimmy called Brooke a frontrunner.

Holly: “Had we discussed that?”

Jimmy: “I don’t think we discussed that because I didn’t know… they were filming me.” (Both start laughing.)

Holly: “No, I always knew that Brooke was a frontrunner for Jimmy, I was living with all these girls for months, so it was no secret to me he had relationships with other people.

But Matty J and Laura from a few seasons back gave us some really good advice and that’s that your relationship starts the day that he picks you at the finale. And anything before that is just a plot. So although it was our lives, our life really began when the finale ended.”

On Jimmy’s tough final decision and when he knew Holly was the right choice for him:

Jimmy: “Look, I mean… I did know that Holly would be the one. Brooke is an amazing girl, she’s a sweet, gentle, kind person. I really liked Brooke from the start but, towards the end, I realised Holly was the one for me. You didn’t want to give too much away, no one is going to watch it if they think someone is a shoo-in. I did really like Brooke and I meant that but as you saw last night, it was really hard to say goodbye to Brooke, but certainly I’ve made the right decision and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

On whether he regrets taking Brooke to the very end:

Jimmy: “No I didn’t, I genuinely did want her back and I wanted to see if there was something there. There was something really strong for us at the start. Brooke was gone for three and half weeks, which is about a third of the time we were filming. So we had the date at the start, then I didn’t hang out with all that much, so I was like, this is someone if she didn’t come back then I’d never know.

So Brooke saying ‘Why did you bring me here to just break up with me?’ wasn’t the case, I hadn’t made my mind up then, I had to get her back to see if there was anything there. The poor thing went through her grandfather dying and I would never put anyone through that just because I was being told to do so.”

On Jimmy’s dad thinking Brooke was a better choice:

Holly: “At the end of the day there does have to be that jeopardy and parents have to side with one or the other. Since the show finished filming, I’ve had many a FaceTime with Noel and with Susan, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have Jimmy and to have his family as well because they are amazing. And Noel is definitely doing some grovelling!”

Jimmy: “He’s seriously back-peddling. But Dad adores Holly. Brooke actually reminded Dad a lot of my Aunt who has passed away who he was really close with. I think Dad drew parallels there and was immediately drawn to Brooke and then kind of ran with it. But now, looking back he knows I’ve absolutely made the right decision – ‘always trust your mother’ – and Dad’s never right, the poor guy. So thanks, Mum.”

On the moment Holly realised Jimmy was in love with her, and whether that ring sparked any engagement talk:

Holly: “That car scene, that was very real, that little tantrum I had went for about 20 minutes! I was so emotionally drained by the process, you go through three months of just not knowing where the hell this guy’s head is at. You have to pack for every rose ceremony, and you just never know. Going into that, there was only about 15 minutes in between Brooke and Jimmy having their moment for the finale. So when I got down that bridge and I saw Jimmy still had tears in his eyes, I was like ‘oh no’, I thought he’s… it’s done, it’s done here. But when the words came out of his mouth and the ring came out, I knew I was in the clear.”

Jimmy: “Not an engagement ring! But if I do propose to her, it’s going to be a really easy transition, I can just get down on one knee, I can take the ring off one finger and put it on the other one.”

Holly: “Absolutely not.”