The first Australian season of The Golden Bachelor is about to come to an end, with Barry ‘Bear’ Myrden making his decision between Sunny Long and Janette Bendle on Sunday night. The Golden Bachelor will whisk his two leading ladies away to South Africa, before revealing his final pick. In the preview, Samantha Armytage asks if Bear has found “the one”, and he confirms that he’s “in love”, before declaring this love will last “forever”. But what happens to the runner-up, who has to walk away with a broken heart?

Photo: Courtesy of Channel 9.

While we’re yet to see who Bear picks, Sunny tells Refinery29 Australia she wouldn’t be “devastated” if she doesn’t end up with Bear, but admits she would still be downcast. The 58-year-old CEO has already revealed she’s in love with the Golden Bachelor, so she’s all in. “I will be definitely sad. But it’s not just my life… I believe he deserves love, and also my friend [Janette] deserves love. And I’m kind of new to singlehood,” Sunny says. “I did my best to the bottom of everything, so I don’t have any regrets. But I want Bear to make the right choice, it’s his life.”

“I believe he deserves love… I did my best to the bottom of everything, so I don’t have any regrets.

Sunny LonG, The Golden Bachelor”

This doesn’t mean she isn’t hoping for Bear to pick her, because their relationship felt so natural. “My feelings grew so rapidly… and finding out he had been raising his sons, and my heart ran out for him,” she says. “He’s a beautiful gentleman, of course, I shouldn’t be emotional, because I’m running a business [but that’s] me. I’m quite an emotional person. I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

However, the women on screen have also formed strong relationships, with Sunny constantly referring to her competition as her “friends”. Instead of thinking of the other women as adversaries, Sunny used the time in the Bachelor mansion to encourage them to deepen their connections with Bear. It’s an unconventional method, but she is unapologetically herself, and she didn’t change herself for TV.

“Some ladies, they also had huge feeling[s] they didn’t even express maybe as much as I have, [so] I really encouraged my friends. So they’ve been single like 10 years, 14 years, 16 years, beautiful women inside [and] outside,” Sunny says. “[I told them], please put all your feelings out there and tell him how you feel. Because after all, everyone deserves love.”

Besides, if Sunny doesn’t walk away with the final rose, she won’t leave empty-handed. For her, the friendships have provided her with something new after her relationship ended six months prior to The Golden Bachelor. “I was at the crossroads… but [the] really deep connection with my friends… it was really, a great feeling,” Sunny says. “Because my relationship ended last year, so I got to start all over again with my friendships, everything. So it was a great opportunity.”