The Bachelorette: Stu begs Sophie for forgiveness
THE MILLIONAIRE HAS FLED TO THE GOLD COAST TO PLEAD WITH THE BACHELORETTE
Multi-millionaire pub heir Stu Laundy has made a desperate, last-minute plea to a devastated Sophie Monk to take him back. The 44-year-old made an emergency trip to the Gold Coast to win Sophie back after she arrived home from her Thailand getaway. Sitting in the lobby of a Gold Coast hotel late last week, the father-of-four was caught swiping through images of the former couple, as an episode of the Channel Ten dating show went live. ‘He looked absolutely devastated,’ an onlooker tells New Idea. ‘He sat there for ages just swiping through photos of Sophie and him together. He looked like a broken man and he didn’t seem to care in the slightest that everyone could see what he was doing on his phone. I think he really does want her back.’
Last week, rumours surfaced that the blonde beauty, 37, had dumped the self-confessed ‘playboy publican’ because he was seeing another woman.
According to insiders, Stu’s trip to the Gold Coast is a peace-making mission and a last-ditch effort to convince Sophie to give him another chance.
‘They’ve got to keep up appearances so the whole show isn’t ruined,’ the source says.
‘But I really do think he does love her as well.’
Meanwhile, a woman, who asked to be unnamed, has sent a warning to Sophie that Stu will break the Bachelorette’s heart.
‘He has dated every girl in Sydney,’ the source says.
While he comes across as a humble, down-to-earth guy on the show, according to the anonymous Sydney socialite Stu is really ‘very, very charming’ and ‘intense’ but ‘lives a real party lifestyle’.
Stu has been linked to Sydney’s highest-profile singletons, including Sophie Falkiner, Laura Csortan and Stephanie Rice, who he met at a Sydney bar thinking she was a newsreader.
The mystery woman says she dated Stu off-and-on for a couple of months two years ago, before he broke her heart – and now she wants to alert Sophie before the same thing happens to her.
‘I want to warn Sophie off him because he’s a real heartbreaker,’ the source says.
‘I fell madly in love with him and truly believed we were going to get married. He tells girls he is in love with them and wants to marry them.
‘Despite his charm and money, he’s not at all romantic. He tracks down a girl he likes on social media and then bombards them with attention.’
Stu’s ex mused: ‘I can’t understand why someone with so much charm and money actually wants to go on a dating reality show. I can’t imagine how embarrassing it must be for his four daughters!’
Stu himself has admitted it was a risk for him to appear
on The Bachelorette and it wasn’t a decision he made lightly.
‘It’s a risk for someone like me to go on the show. I ummed and aahed a lot, but what got me over the line was that I just thought I saw something in Soph,’ he told News Corp.
‘When I first met her, it was excellent and I really wanted to meet her again and I had to go through the rigmarole to do it.’
He even admitted his past would come back to haunt him when he appeared on the show, putting his private life on display.
‘For me, this is possibly the biggest risk I’ve ever taken in my life,’ he said on the Channel Ten show last week.
‘I’m going to get brutalised around town, jeopardising some relationships, but you were worth the risk.’