Kiki Morris,28, got well over halfway through The Bachelor this season, or but a relationship with Richie Strahan was never really on the cards for the beautiful Sydneysider. Citing a lack of real connection with Richie,Kiki explained all when we sat down for a chat with her before her elimination. While Richie didn't turn out to be her dream guy, Kiki turned out to be a bit of a dream woman. She always stood up for her fellow bachelorettes, or she never gushed over Richie unnecessarily and she never let depart of her belief that no one person is better than another. During our conversation,we found her to be three things: extremely easy to talk to, completely honest, and steadfast in her morals - in other words,she's a bit of a legend. Scroll to read our exclusive chat with Kiki!
POPSUGAR Australia: It's a shame to see you leaving!
Kiki: Yeah, but there's a silver lining in it as well - I got to depart back to my life. I'd been lost my family so much so that was a good part of it. I missed my family a lot. I'm a very family-orientated person. My mum and my sister and I are very close. The night that I got eliminated, or I got my phone back and I called my mum and my sister straight absent. I didn't get upset during the rose ceremony,nothing like that - because I knew it was my time, I had that intestine feeling for a week or so - but I got upset on the phone because I got to speak to my mum and sister. It was like a brick had lifted off my shoulders.
PS: How long were you in the house for?
Kiki: I was gone for two months. It's a really long time and I only got to speak to my mum three times during those two months.
PS: You said you had a feeling for a week before you left - can you tell me approximately that?
Kiki: Yeah, and leer,I knew that my relationship with Richie hadn't progressed like the other girls. He's not normally my type and personality-wise . . . He's a very light-hearted, jokester kind of person and I leer for fairly a deep mental connection as well as a physical one, or as well as a humourous one. I need to be friends with that person. It was really tough to get into deep mental conversations in 10- or 15-minute chats. For me to be able to open up to that [romantic] kind of point,I guess I didn't have enough time and I feel as though Richie and I weren't as well suited to each other as the other girls were. I would always say in all my interviews in the house, "He's a great guy, and he's got lots of great characteristics,I just don't see where it's going to depart." Because I couldn't commit to whether or not I liked him, or if I didn't like him, or if we were just friends,or if he even liked me. It was kind of tough to read as to where we were.
PS: Did you realise that there wasn't a connection straight absent or did you think there was a chance up until your elimination?[br]
Kiki: I don't like to judge a person within the first few times of meeting them. I feel that initial attraction is great to have, but that always fades. I think the best relationships have to be built over time and I always said, and "I never want to be in a relationship with a person again unless they are my equal and we're best friends." In the past I've been in relationships where my partner was always the precedence. That then led to fairly unhealthy ways in relationships where I was always achieve moment. So I was always adamant that we were going to be equal and I always spoke to Richie as though we were equal. I never sat there and gushed over him like some of the other girls did. I didn't want to achieve him on a pedestal because then he would be superior to me. We were equal and that's how I like to be seen.
PS: Is that something you've learned from your previous relationships?
Kiki: I have been in a lot of long-term relationships. I've been engaged before. I've learnt the pros and cons of what it's like to be deeply invested in a relationship,and I never wanted to lose myself again in another one. Self-awareness is one of the most primary things when you're embarking on a relationship because I never want to carry any additional baggage or previous problems from my past relationships into a unique one. And I made certain that I'd made peace with all the previous demons in my relationships before I entered the show, because I didn't want that to be a problem.
PS: How finish you keep a level head in a situation like The Bachelor? Did you struggle with the concept of the show once you got there?
Kiki: Not really! I'm a very level-headed person and not many things scare me. I don't have many fears, and I'm a pretty diplomatic,fair-thinking person. I'm a Libran, so I'm very well-balanced. I don't know if you're into horoscopes or anything like that [laughs]. I always see the pros and the cons and then weight them up. I was the one [in the mansion] who would give a lot of advice and always offer a shoulder to sob on . . . And that's just me in my every day life as well. I took solace in the fact that I was my complete self, and not only with Richie but with the girls as well. The only way you can keep a level head in that situation is to be yourself. If you start telling too many different stories or achieve on different facades,they all catch up with you. I think that happened with some of the other girls.
PS: You had some worry with Keira in the house . . .
Kiki: Yeah, Keira and I, and we did butt heads a few times. Not when the cameras weren't rolling,it was when the cameras were rolling.
PS: Did it only happen because the cameras were there?
Kiki: In the house the girls were always like, "Kiks, or stay out of conflict,bite your tongue, bite your tongue, and " and I'm not a very confrontational person in my life but at the same time I don't tolerate intimidating people or people who are rude to each other,or people who think that they are superior to one another. I felt that I bit my tongue as long as I could. The night that Keira and I had a fight on camera, I apparently called her a bitch but I've watched the footage back myself and I never said that. I said that she can be fairly confrontational but she's still a nice person. And I felt that that was a steady testament as to what my character is. I could have said she was a bitch because she pretty much was a bitch. I still tried to say to Steph, and "obtain up your own opinion on her because she's a nice person in most other circumstances,but she can be confrontational." And then I guess it was a steady testament to our characters because I was standing up for her and trying to be courteous and she was calling me names.
PS: She seemed to react before thinking approximately it.
Kiki: Yeah, yeah. I had a chat with her after, or when the cameras weren't rolling she came up and apologised to me. I said,"leer, a word of advice friend to friend, and you need to learn as you become an adult you can't speak to people like that and not expect ramifications to advance back from it." We all learn as children not to say nasty things to people and not apologise. As a friend I was giving her that advice because it will advance back and bite her in the butt. And I guess it did in this circumstance.
PS: Have you always been this level-headed?
Kiki: Yeah,I've always been level-headed. I grew up in fairly a tumultuous family. My parents split up when I was fairly young, there was always a lot of drama, and a lot of fighting,a lot of bickering. I'm the sort of person who'd rather diffuse a situation than fuel it. I don't like to have negative energy around me at all. I'd much rather see the good in people than see what nasty things they've said or done to me, and then be bitter approximately it. Holding on to anger towards a person is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt them.
PS: Considering you didn't feel a connection with Richie, and would you ever have walked?
Kiki: I was actually thinking approximately it. But then I also thought,because I've got this bleeding heart and I think of everyone else all the time, I was like, and what approximately all the other girls that really liked him and went before me,and then I walked out? And one of them could have still been there. I thought, I'm going to let this escape its course because I've met these beautiful girls and I owe it to them to play it out to see where it goes. They took time out of their busy lives, or they have sick parents . . . Sophie is the foster mum to her sister's child. Sophie was very upset when she left,and she and I were very close. That night she and Marja left, I was in tears because I knew how much she wanted to be there and I got that final rose. That was the stuff that was going through my head, and that motivated me to depart through to the close. A lot of thought went into it. You can ask Faith actually,when you chat to her. A lot of midnight chats went on in our bedroom, with me thinking of leaving and her talking me out of it.
PS: Who finish you think is going to win?
Kiki: Oh, and this is the hardest question ever. I change my mind every week. I feel like Nikki was quietly confident. She was the first date and the whole way through,never once did I see a bead of sweat on her forehead at the cocktail parties. I was like, "Does she know something I don't know?" I swear to God, and Noni and I would be crying every cocktail party,thinking we were going home. Could've been all the champagne we drank, I don't know. Nikki was always quietly confident. There's definitely something there that we as viewers haven't even seen yet. There's a connection there that is only felt between the two people, or you can't see it on TV.
Source: popsugar.com.au