Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@shoniemandy
Topics: Married At First Sight, TV And Film, Sex and Relationships, Celebrity
Mia Williams
Topics: Married At First Sight, TV And Film, Sex and Relationships, Celebrity
Married at First Sight's Matt Pilmoor and Shona Manderson have announced they've been secretly dating after being paired up with other people on the show.
The two met at the Married At First Sight reunion, after Shona had wed Brad Skelly on the show.
The 31-year-old labelled that relationship as ‘unhealthy’ and they parted ways, she then aimed to focus on herself for a while.
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That was until she met Matt, 29, at the show’s reunion in June, and the pair hit it off.
Even more interesting was that Shona admitted she didn’t know who her now-boyfriend was before the event in June, but Matt confessed he had always found her attractive.
In an interview with OK! Magazine, Shona said: “We have a really healthy, happy, safe, fun, relationship - I really appreciate Matt so much, it's what I deserve, we deserve each other.
“I'm proud to be his girlfriend and it just works.”
Explaining how they attempted to keep an element of privacy in their relationship while they were dating, she continued: “Matt would be driving and I would be in the back, we would be walking around Nottingham and I'd be all the way over there, we were like secret agents on a mission.”
Matt - who was paired with Adrienne Naylor on the show - added: “We had to do it, we had to be so careful.”
After checking out her profiles on social media, and their conversations at the show’s event, Matt invited her to spend some time with him in Harrogate, and the pair claim that there was an ‘instant vibe’.
Talking about if they wish they were together on the show, Matt said: “We had to do what we had to do, my experience was good but we were meant to go on those journeys to find each other.
“Being together from the start would have been incredible but I think it happened this way around for a purpose.
"I remember saying to Shona at the end of the reunion 'You should come to Harrogate' and she was like 'Ok, I will' but we didn't rush into anything.”
Despite their instant connection, it’s safe to say that Shona was still wary and didn’t want to go head-first into a new relationship.
The pair waited just over a month before meeting up after the reunion.
Shona said: “We said to each other it's a bit soon, let's not meet straightaway, so it was about five weeks after the reunion when we met.
“I wanted to learn from my experience with Brad, I didn't want to go in head first, I wanted it to be a slow burner.”