As Farmer Wants A Wife viewers eagerly await the 2026 reunion, which will answer all the burning questions over which FWAW couples stayed together, the rest of the non-winning women have reverted to their regular lives — and day jobs.
But for Lily Tomkinson, Farmer Dylan’s lady who sensationally quit his farm over Ally’s controversial double date kiss, this vet tech and conservationist has returned to one hell of an Instagram following.
Lily has become something of a wildlife rescue influencer in the past month, boasting an Instagram following of 133,000 at the time of publication — making her, by far, the most followed person from the 2026 season.
Despite her sizeable following, Lily told Woman’s Day that her lifelong passion for animals was ‘super played down’ in her story arc on FWAW. “It all got cut, and I think it’s such an amazing story, and I’d love to tell it more. It was definitely disappointing for me [to watch].”
The 28-year-old Queenslander admits that at the start of FWAW, she had around 30k followers but has experienced exponential growth in the past month. However, she doesn’t credit her time on the dating reality show for her social media success.
Lily’s sudden Instagram fame after Farmer Wants A Wife
Lily told Woman’s Day that even before FWAW, her Instagram was already blowing up. “I had a few videos go viral, like into the millions, such as the carpet python coming to my bedroom and a few rescue videos and stuff like that. The momentum was big,” she said.
She didn’t have much success with FWAW boosting her Instagram following. “I was reaching five million accounts in the last 30 days when I gave it over [to FWAW producers], and… it plateaued a lot when I didn’t have access to it,” she continued.
“It didn’t help at all. I lost followers during it… of course they turn off comments, they turn off DMs, and when you don’t get engagement, that’s when things really drop off.”
Lily shares that her followers — who are largely women from Australia, the US and Canada interested in animals — did not all support her pivot to reality TV. “I had messages and comments, DMs, everything from multiple people being like, ‘You’ve lost me as a follower’,” she said.
“My followers are pretty invested in the wildlife.”
It wasn’t until Lily was given back access to her Instagram that she saw a huge increase in reach and followers. “I’m really blown away with how it’s all going,” she said.
Lily’s follower count got a huge extra boost when she had viral posts from her parrot’s babies being born and her helping a wounded sea turtle and snake — and the heartwarming posts have been viewed by millions.
“It is a unique niche because there aren’t many women that are doing this, so I saw the gap, and I’m like, I need to do this. This is my niche. This is what I’m going to do, and I’m going to do it differently than everyone else.”
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