Poor Bronson Norrish had a roller coaster ride on Married at First Sight Australia. His pairing with Ines Basic was doomed from the start, and despite doing his utmost to make the relationship work, it all came crashing down when Ines’ affair with Sam Ball was revealed.
The 35-year-old former stripper turned entrepreneur has well and truly moved on from the show, however, debuting his new love on Instagram during a loved-up holiday in Bali.
The lucky lady is 34-year-old model, charity worker and pole dance instructor Melissa Dobson. And the story behind their romance is incredibly sweet.
“I was his high school crush,” Melissa revealed to the Daily Mail.
Bronson tracked her and some of his other school friends down in December last year after leaving the experiment. Admitting that initially she didn’t know who he was, their bond grew grew rapidly after their first meeting.
“It was 17 years since we’d last seen each other,” she said. “We caught up and had a connection straight away.”
“From there he swept me off my feet.”
“It’s all about timing and he really is an amazing guy,” saying she feels like the “luckiest girl in the world.”
Bronson was equally impressed, telling 9Honey “she is still just as caring, sweet, honest and as genuine as when I had first met her all those years ago.”
Bronson’s road to happily ever after has been marred by tragedy. Before signing up for Married at First Sight he was dealt blow after blow after blow, losing two brothers and his mother within the space of three years.
Bronson is the first to admit the tragedy had a significant affect on him. “Don’t get me wrong, when my first brother died, I hit the bottle,” he told TV WEEK.
“And when Mum died, I went off the rails pretty hard. I disappeared for about a year and buried myself out in the bush, working on a cattle farm.”
Bronson’s marriage to Ines started off rocky and went downhill from there.
However difficult it was, the MAFS experience has given him a new lease on life, saying it was the push he needed to “get myself out there and keep trying.”
And as for reconnecting with his new love Melissa, “You never know,” he told 9 Honey, “you may have already met the right person years ago. You just have to wait for the timing to be right. Don’t ever give up.”
