Liz Sandoz did in fact try to get in touch with The Bachelor star Nick Viall after their wedding hookup, according to her best friend Jade Roper.
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While Sandoz didn't ask Roper for Viall's phone number or contact the Bachelor personally, Sandoz did ask Roper to invite Viall to a charity event so they could run into each other casually again.
"She was like, 'Why don't you invite Nick? I kind of would like to see him again,'" Roper, who appeared on Bachelor in Paradise 2, told Us of Sandoz's request.
"And I was like, 'Okay!' So I sent him a text, and he was like, 'You know what, I have some things in the works,' which was the show. He was like, 'I don't know if I can make it,' and he couldn't. So she had tried to kind of reach out, in a passive way."
As shown on Monday night's premiere of The Bachelor, Sandoz, a 29-year-old doula from Las Vegas, revealed to producers Viall had asked for her phone number after the pair had sex at Roper's wedding but she declined, thinking he was just being polite.
About nine months later, Sandoz shocked Viall by choosing to compete on his The Bachelor edition without ever having tried to contact him first.
After pretending to introduce herself to Viall for the first time as a way to test whether he'd remember her, Sandoz confessed at the season's first cocktail party she had struggled with a bad-boy stereotype when she met him months earlier, likely due to his history of being a promiscuous villain on The Bachelorette.
Sandoz told Viall that she saw and liked his true colors on Bachelor in Paradise 3 this past summer. Viall seemed frustrated that Sandoz hadn't already come to the conclusion he was a genuine guy upon meeting him in person. He also questioned her dating intentions since she seemed to have a sudden interest in dating him on TV.
But Roper confirmed she played a role in Sandoz's decision to appear on The Bachelor and compete for Viall's heart.
"I was like, 'Go see, why not?'" Roper recalled to the magazine of her encouraging words to Sandoz, who also got some advice from her best friend.
"Oh, my gosh, I talked to that girl, like, four or five times [about what to say to Nick]. I'm like, 'Listen -- do this, don't do that.' But I feel like once they were face-to-face, it was kind of a lot of pressure, and it was probably awkward for both of them, and you never know what's going to happen."
Regardless of the situation being a little awkward, Viall chose to give his final rose of the night to Sandoz.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
