Reality star Nick Viall has gone through the Bachelor franchise a whopping four times, but it looks like he’s done dating in that reality TV bubble — and now he has a girlfriend that he met all on his own!
Photos surfaced of the Wisconsin native, 40, walking with Natalie Joy in Los Angeles on January 19. Nick and the model, who also works as a surgical technician, have been romantically linked since 2019, but the reality stud has never publicly confirmed their relationship. That seemingly changed in February 2021, when Nick shared a video of his girlfriend on Instagram wearing a towel on her head after taking a shower. “Ladies and gentlemen … Her @nnataliejjoy 
” he wrote. Looks like they’re finally official!
Many of his Bachelor Nation friends took to the comments to congratulate the formerly perpetually single hunk on his new romance. “There you go dude!!! Pumped for you brother,” wrote Ben Higgins. Chris Bukowski wrote, “Happy for you pal,” while Chris Harrison‘s girlfriend, Lauren Zima, shared a bunch of red heart emojis.
Whether he and Natalie’s relationship lasts for the long haul or not, it’s unlikely fans will see Nick dating in the reality TV world again. “I look forward to meeting [contestants] as a part of the Bachelor family, but I don’t really date in Bachelor Nation anymore. I stay away from it,” he previously told Life & Style when asked if there are any prior or upcoming contestants he would be interested in romantically.
Nick has not been in a public relationship since his engagement to Vanessa Grimaldi following season 21. They split shortly after in 2017 and both admitted they had “different versions” of what went wrong when the Candian beauty appeared on “The Viall Files” podcast in September.
“I think the one thing Vanessa and I really agreed about is how much we cared and how much we tried,” Nick said at the time. “And we just went about it so unproductively … If the speed of how you’re driving is equal to the effort you’re putting in, we were both going 100 miles per hour, but we were both going at opposite directions at one another and it eventually just crashed and exploded.”
He has since sparked romance rumors with former Bachelorette Andi Dorfman, Bachelor in Paradise alum Demi Burnett, actress Rachel Bilson and more. For her part, Vanessa got engaged to longtime boyfriend Joshua Wolfe in August.
“Public relationships don’t ever help the relationship,” the podcast host explained about dating in the spotlight. “It doesn’t mean you can’t have one and it doesn’t mean you can’t get through it, but it doesn’t ever benefit the relationship. I think you always have to be mindful of that and try to have some sort of privacy even if you have a public relationship.”
He pointed out there can be “many outside influences” while trying to navigate a romance in the public eye. “You give people a window into your relationship and then you open yourself up for praise and criticism. Both can play a role in a relationship,” he added. “Any relationship should really be about each other but sometimes when you invite a third party, being the public, it can cause unnecessary stresses.”
It looks like Nick will be keeping his love life quiet from now on.
Reporting by Fortune Benatar