‘Bachelorette’ alum Connor Saeli, TikToker Jenna Palek dating

Bachelor Nation star Connor Saeli and TikToker Jenna Palek are formally courting.

After months of rumors, Palek confirmed Friday that she and Saeli quietly turned a pair final fall.

“It was very arduous truthfully. Making an attempt to navigate a friendship turned relationship when folks on-line are attempting to inform you what it’s if you don’t even know,” she wrote on her Instagram Story.

“I used to be hesitant … Turned out it was for the higher & we began courting formally in November. Issues have been nice!!”

Palek, 24, admitted she had “at all times appreciated” and been “a fan” of Saeli, 27, after watching him on “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” so she messaged him on LinkedIn in 2019 however didn’t obtain a response.

After Saeli and his “Bachelorette” co-star Mike Johnson moved to Palek’s native Austin, Texas, collectively in late 2020, she made a TikTok video poking enjoyable at herself for being ghosted by the truth star. Saeli noticed it, lastly adopted Palek again and requested her to hang around that October.

“We had been pals for a bit and misplaced contact that fall, simply at totally different phases of life,” she recalled. “Reconnected February 2021 and step by step turned actually good pals.”

Whereas the social media sensation described their preliminary relationship as “platonic,” she acknowledged she was “clearly falling for” Saeli as they received to know one another extra.

“I received invited on a [weeklong work] journey to Chicago and milwaukee in June. None of my pals might go bc of their work schedule, so I invited Connor,” she shared. “We had been purely pals throughout that journey & I feel the actual fact there was not strain to impress him actually allowed us to simply join otherwise.”

Palek wrote that “some emotions had fashioned” in the course of the journey, and whereas spending time with Saeli and Johnson, 34, in Los Angeles within the fall, she and the Waterboy founder turned girlfriend and boyfriend.

“I’m very open about my life however he’s positively extra reserved which I respect, so I don’t share a lot about our relationship as a result of it’s one factor that I wish to need to myself,” the “Enjoyable on Weekdays” podcast host concluded her publish, including that she additionally tries to “respect” Saeli and “what he’s snug sharing.”

Saeli has solely publicly mentioned Palek as soon as, saying on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast in September 2021 that they had been simply “actually, actually good pals” who had been nonetheless “making an attempt to determine” their relationship.

He beforehand dated Season 15 “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown and his “Bachelor in Paradise” Season 6 co-star Whitney Fransway.