TV

Below Deck’s Aesha ‘I’ve found my dream man’

The reality TV star reveals she’s found ‘the one’ in a fellow free-spirited Kiwi adventurer

With her unfiltered personality and fun-loving nature, Tauranga-born-and- raised Aesha Scott sailed away with the hearts of Below Deck fans around the world, as well as her co-stars. And now the Kiwi star of Bravo’s popular reality TV franchise has won the heart of a man she’s known since high school but never realised was her perfect match. Until now!

Talking to Woman’s Day at her boyfriend’s parents’ house, located on the outskirts of Tauranga, the loved-up couple explain how their romance blossomed through some good old-fashioned cyber-stalking.

“My sister lives in New York and her friend noticed that Aesha followed me,” explains Scott Dobson, 31.

“She asked how I knew her. I said, ‘We went to the same school. How do you know her?’ She had to explain to me that Aesha was famous,” he laughs. “So I looked at her Instagram page and went, ‘Oh, she does have a few followers, doesn’t she?!'”

Half a million to be precise. But if anyone can use the excuse that they’ve been existing under a rock, Scott can. He’s lived in the US for 11 years, much of that time travelling around the country in a converted ambulance, disconnected from the world of reality television. When he learned Aesha, 31, was also living in the States, he contacted her to say hi.

“Scott is really good at contacting Kiwis and asking to catch up because it’s not often that people from Tauranga go over there,” explains Aesha. “He messaged me and asked if I wanted to connect. It was really weird. Before he contacted me, I’d been thinking about my perfect life and how I wanted it to look. I thought I’d really love a van, to be camping all the time, cooking outside, going on hikes and swimming in lakes. When Scott contacted me, I looked at his Instagram page and went, ‘Oh, my God, everything that I pictured and how I want my life to be is exactly the way that he’s living full-time.’ So then I messaged him and said, ‘Can we please go do fun things together?!'”

After reconnecting in the Big Apple and bonding over a love of adventure, Aesha recalls thinking, “Yep, this is the exact guy I wanna be with.”

A self-proclaimed adventure junkie, Aesha is always on the lookout for the next life- changing experience. And after meeting Scott, she realised she’d met her match, in more ways than one.

“At first, the messaging was quite slow, but over time it ended up being every day,” she tells. “Then I asked if I could come out to see him and do a little trip together – and he said yes!”

Aesha literally jumped into Scott’s arms on their first meeting, right before they took off on a two-week road trip in the ambulance.

Says Scott, “We knew there was chemistry right from the start, in those early days of messaging.”

“I ran towards him at the airport and we had a kiss,” gushes Aesha. “That trip was honestly one of the best trips of my life. He took me to Utah, where we canoed down a river and camped right on Horseshoe Bend. I remember canoeing down and looking up at the cliffs either side, then at Scott, thinking, ‘How is this my life? This is my first date with this guy!’ It was then that I thought, ‘Yep, this is the exact guy I wanna be with.'”

Two and a half years later, the pair are still travelling together, though not nearly as often as they’d like to. They spend about six months apart each year, Aesha filming Below Deck and Scott working the busy summer months as a bar manager in Breckinridge, Colorado.

“We’re really lucky,” says Aesha. “We’re so stable. We’ve got absolute trust in each other, so we’re fine when we’re apart. And we’re very independent. We’re probably two of the best people to do long-distance stints. But it is getting to the point where I want us to spend more time together.”

All hands on deck! The TV star with Captain Sandy Yawn (far left) and Hannah Ferrier

Aesha and Scott plan to buy a house in Mount Maunganui next summer, and Aesha hopes to work out a way for Scott to join her on work trips. “Then he can spend his spare time flying,” she explains. “He would love to be a pro speed flyer and build that part of his career.”

Speed flying is a combination of paragliding and parachuting, but with an overhead wing and no reserve parachute if anything goes wrong – and you travel at speeds of up to 150km/h.

When asked if she’s comfortable with her partner doing such a high-risk sport, Aesha smiles. “He’s really good at it and he’s really smart, so I do trust his judgement,” she says. “It’s one of those things that he loves so much and is so passionate about that I could never be the one to take it away from him. And it’s so cliched, but he could just as easily get hit by a bus!”

For now, the pair are happy to live out their adventures sometimes independently of one another. But they’re both excited for a future where they’re together more than not. They’ve even talked marriage and kids.

“That’s a few years away yet, but it will happen eventually!” says Aesha, looking at Scott.

“I didn’t think I’d ever want kids, but when you find the right person, that changes,” admits Scott, adding that once they have a home base, they’ll know when the time is right.

“We’re trying to spend more time together,” he says. “This will be the norm from now on – coming home for summers.”

Last Christmas was the first time in more than 10 years that Scott’s whole family has got together. “He wasn’t even supposed to be here now,” smiles Aesha. “But he surprised me on my birthday. It was so nice!”

After she arrived in Tauranga for the summer, around 30 of Aesha’s friends and family showed up to celebrate her 31st birthday in November.

“I was only starting to process how overwhelmed I was and then they said, ‘Turn around’, and Scott walked up behind me. It was so cute! I was an absolute mess the whole time. I’m very lucky to have him. He’s such a good man.”

As for the future of Aesha’s reality TV journey, she was just recently chosen to join the “Friends of Bravo”, a curated group of talent with expertise in fashion, beauty, style, fitness, food and more. The group will create branded content solutions for clients across social platforms.

Behind the bar Down Under.

Having just filmed season one of Below Deck Down Under, Aesha isn’t sure when shooting will start for season two, or whether she’s on it at all. But she’s not worried. She’ll go wherever the wind takes her, with her soulmate by her side.

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