Exclusive: Elly Miles responds to fans calling for her to be the next Bachelorette

Fan-favourite Elly Miles was eliminated from The Bachelor Australia on Wednesday night, leaving viewers furious with our dear astrophysicist Bachie.

Matt Agnew chose to send Elly home, after she raised concerns over fellow contestant Abbie Chatfield. Elly’s not the first person to do so, but she may be the last after the discussion saw her booted from the mansion in a heartbreaking twist.

We caught up with Elly to find out how she’s moving on from Matt, her thoughts on becoming the next Bachelorette, and why she wants social media trolls to leave Abbie alone.

How do you feel now the episode has aired? You don’t have to pretend you might’ve won!

[Laughs] I know, yeah! I’m good and I’m happy that it’s all out there now. I can settle back in to normal life and relax.

And has it been tough for you to keep up the façade throughout the series, obviously you need to pretend you might be with Matt while the show is airing. Has it been difficult?

Nah! I don’t… like… it’s funny, once I got out of the mansion I was definitely shocked and was very upset, as was shown on telly, but as soon as I was back in my normal life I was like ‘no, I’m okay.’ I accepted it really quickly. How devastated and how upset I felt that night, and on the way home, it just took me a sec for it to sink in because I was shocked and didn’t expect it, but as soon as it sunk in I was good. You know, going in to it you know you’re probably going to get dumped at one point or another, you gear yourself up for that to happen. The odds aren’t really in your favour to end up with him. But yeah I’m good!

As well, when you’re in the mansion you’re very isolated and you’re all ‘competing’ for the same guy. So once you leave you might realise those feelings weren’t as intense as they seemed?

Yeah, I definitely wasn’t heartbroken. I think it would have been a different story if I had made it to hometowns and he had met my family. That would have been a further progression of my feelings, if I’d seen him with my family. But yeah, nup! [laughs]

You’ve said you’re not heartbroken, but how do you feel towards Matt now?

I’ve got nothing bad at all to say about Matt, I think he’s a wonderful person and I think he deserves to find love at the end of this and I really hope he does.

Who do you see Matt ending up with?

I think Matt’s probably… I just keep having this vision of Matt and Chelsie’s kids doing science experiments at the kitchen counter [laughs]. I think they’re just so well suited to one another. I guess they both speak the same language, they’re lovely people, they’re kind of the same person really!

Looking back, do you have regret over the situation with Abbie or have you just accepted that it happened, and it’s time to move on?

I mean, yeah that’s a good way to put it like… you can’t really get too caught up in what you should or shouldn’t have done. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing, and I was being protective over Matt because he’s a great guy and I had really strong feelings for him. But, in saying that, watching it back you can see that Abbie and Matt do have a really strong connection and it could be Abbie at the end of the day. You know, you can’t pick and choose who you’re falling for and Matt’s just trying to figure it al out for himself and it’s clear they do have something.

Have you spoken with Abbie since? Are you on good terms?

Yeah! Abbie and I are all good, we spoke before the show aired and we’ve been speaking throughout. It’s just such a different world and it’s an experience that doesn’t exactly bring out the best in all of us. As far as I’m concerned and Abbie said the same thing, it’s water under the bridge. I’m really happy and in a good place, why would I want to hold on to something like that.

You’ve spoken out about the negativity towards Abbie and the fact that she is copping a lot from the public. What is your message to people who are trolling her or others on the show?

I guess this is like a broad message, but if you don’t have something kind to say about someone, don’t say it. At the end of the day, the nasty things that people say, they’re the ones that stick with you. And imagine if you had something to do with sending someone else down in to a deep dark hole? Your mental health is so sensitive, and people’s comments can have an effect on that quite easily so I just think, take the show with a grain of salt. You know what I mean? Abbie is not a bad girl. She’s very witty, very intelligent, and she’s a lot of fun as well… she’s just someone you don’t want to come up against on The Bachelor, that’s all.

And you approached the situation with Abbie in quite a mature way, you were very honest with her. It didn’t seem to be about the drama for you…

No, drama is not something I want to be involved with. It’s something I’ll deal with if I’m involved in it and I’ll try deal with it with dignity. You know, I’m not a catty person and I’m not a jealous person, if someone doesn’t want to be with me that’s sweet, that’s how I see it. So yeah it was tough being in that situation. I didn’t want to put myself in that situation, and I just tried to keep my dignity at the end of the day [laughs].

You’ve been compared to Nikki Gogan from Richie Strahan’s season quite a bit! Has she reached out to you to offer any words of advice?

Not that I’ve seen! My phone is absolutely going bezerk, though, so I haven’t looked. Some of the ex-contestants and other people in the community have reached out to me and just said some lovely words, that’s so nice! And I hope one day I’ll be able to do that for somebody else, because it’s so nice to have that support and it’s hard to understand if you haven’t been in this situation. It is a completely different world.

Speaking of support, how does it feel to have all the fans behind you? Like, there are people saying they don’t even want to watch it anymore now that you’re gone…

[Laughs] Yeah, it’s lovely! You don’t know how you’re going to come across on telly, and that’s a risk you’ve got to take when you agree to participate in an experience like this. It’s so humbling and it’s so nice, it’s hard to describe when someone comes up to you in the street and they haven’t met you before but they have nothing but nice things to say to you. It’s really lovely.

And you must have seen all the fans calling for you to be the next Bachelorette, what do you think? Would you give it a shot?

I’m still single! It would depend where I’m at, at the time, but I’d certainly give it consideration. If the offer did come up I’d definitely consider it and yeah, I guess time will tell!

You then had that big trip with your sister after the show, was that a great way to move on from the Bachie experience and gain a little perspective?

Yes, it was amazing. It was all planned way in advance of the show, but it was the perfect timing really. I had so much fun and… I’m definitely not interested in settling down and buying a house now, I’m like ‘where’s the next trip’ [laughs]. I changed my priorities a bit, I suppose.