This year’s The Bachelor hasn’t been without its controversy following claims actors had been planted on the show, revelations of contestants’ raunchy stripper pasts, and suggestions the winner had been known in media circles before the show had even launched.

And now weekly gossip mag NW has suggested in its latest issue that Matty J and this year’s favourite to win his heart, Laura Byrne, are actually former lovers.

The latest scandal follows revelations over the weekend that Matty J once starred in a rather diabolical feminine hygiene ad from 2009. Check out his acting debut below:

When it came to NW’s revelations that Matty J and Byrne were former boyfriend and girlfriend, the magazine relies on the rather dubious “insider” source.

“No-one was buying that Laura and Matty met for the first time at the mansion. They were all too familiar from night one,” the insider revealed, adding she’d seen the pair together at a New Year’s eve function in 2016, some months before the filming of this year’s series.

However, it’s not the first time a gossip magazine has made such claims. New Idea had previously suggested Matty J had some sort of relationship with two of this year’s contestants, Jen Hawke and Leah Costa, prior to the launch of this year’s series.