Former Bachelorette Michelle Young and her boyfriend, Jack Leius, totally had an “invisible string” before they officially started dating.
“She has a good friend and her friend has a little brother, who I know, and her friend’s little brother posted Michelle in his [Instagram] Story and so I kinda just hit him up a couple times,” Leius, 26, revealed during the Friday, January 5, episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast. “Like, ‘Hey man, when are you gonna introduce me to Michelle?’”
Leius kept pestering his buddy for an introduction, telling him that he was “really serious” about connecting with the former Bachelorette star, 30, because she seemed “really cool” and “beautiful.”
Unbeknownst to Leius, Young had also expressed interest in her now-boyfriend to the same sibling pair.
“I had no idea any of this was going on [and] I was with said little brother and my friend, and we were just talking,” she recalled, noting the topic of her singlehood came up. “I said, ‘I have no idea how I’m supposed to meet my person in Minnesota. Like, [he] is definitely not in Minnesota at this point. I gotta start traveling more because they’re not on the apps!’”
Thinking that Young had met “all” of her pal’s brother’s acquaintances, she asked if he’d play matchmaker. The friend subsequently pulled up Leius’ Instagram profile, and Young was intrigued that he only had “five pictures” before she found herself blushing over her physical attraction to Leius.
Michelle Young and Jack Leius Disney/James Clark
“I was like, ‘Well, is he a good person?’” Young added. “In my world, I thought I brought it up to this person but [Jack] also did within, like, 48, hours. … It was really weird.”
Young and Leius met later that night and immediately clicked.
While some roses stand the test of time, others wilt before the Neil Lane engagement ring can be resized. The Bachelor premiered on ABC in March 2002 with Alex Michel dubbed the world’s most eligible Bachelor. More than 20 women competed for his heart and one of the most successful reality TV franchises was born. […]
“I think we spent the next four days together,” Leius told podcast host Ben Higgins and guest Trista Sutter. “And we were dating by Sunday.”
Young further speculated that their bond was a result of the “invisible string theory” that’s been popular on social media, explaining that they likely crossed paths as two Minnesota natives around the same age.
“We went through breakups at the exact same time,” she said. “We were going through devastating breakups [and] we were in the same stage of our breakups as we were going through ‘Not ready met someone’ [to] ‘Ready to meet somebody’ and then those few steps back. We go to all the same bars … the lake he grew up on, my family fishes [there] 24/7.”
Young’s romance with Leius is her first relationship since she called off her engagement to Nayte Olukoya. During Young’s season 18 of The Bachelorette, she got engaged to Olukoya, 29, during the season finale. They split in June 2022, six months after their proposal aired.