Bachelor Nation
‘Bachelor in Paradise’s Alli Jo Hinkes & Sam McKinney Reveal How Romance Began After the Show
Just over two weeks after Sam McKinney and Alli Jo Hinkes hard-launched their romance, the couple is spilling all about their love story. McKinney and Hinkes appeared on the Wednesday, August 13, episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour podcast and dished to hosts Kathy Swarts and Susan Noles about how they got together and more.
While Hinkes and McKinney were both contestants on Season 10 of Bachelor in Paradise, they never crossed paths on the beach. He was eliminated before she arrived, and she was sent home the week of her arrival. However, it didn’t take long for them to connect afterwards.
Their first interaction came months before their respective trips to Paradise, though. “I reached out to him a couple months ago during Grant [Ellis’] season [of The Bachelor],” Hinkes explained. “The show was just on. I was teaching a Rumble class, and one of my clients had said something to me in the lobby before class that her son knew [McKinney’s] sister. It was a mutual person.”
Hinkes said she messaged McKinney on social media and explained that she “got compared” to him on The Bachelor (McKinney was previously a contestant on Jenn Tran‘s season of The Bachelorette). From there, the two “started chatting a little,” and McKinney struck up another conversation “a couple months later.”
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At that point, they began discussing the possibility of being on Bachelor in Paradise. “We both didn’t know if we were going or not,” Hinkes shared. “He answered me, and I stopped answering his messages.”
The New Jersey native revealed that she “didn’t want to keep the conversation going and asking questions” if there was a chance they would both be on the beach together. “I wanted it to happen organically,” she continued. “I didn’t want to know all these things about him if he was going to go.”
When she did get to the show and found out McKinney had already been sent home, Hinkes said she was “shocked” and “super disappointed.” She admitted that McKinney was “the only person” she wanted to meet, and she was planning on using her date card on him when she arrived. McKinney agreed that Hinkes was the only one he was interested in pursuing before the show, too.
Once Hinkes’ time in Paradise came to an end and she got her phone back, she messaged McKinney and told him she was “disappointed” they didn’t get to meet. “He goes, ‘Chin up, here’s my number, give me a call,'” she added. “I called him before I got on the flight and ever since then…”
As for their timeline, Hinkes said she FaceTimed McKinney for the first time while she was home visiting family on Mother’s Day weekend in mid-May. They met in person for the first time in early June when McKinney, who lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, flew to Hinkes’ home in Florida for a visit.
Since then, the two have met each other’s families and have begun to have discussions about moving to be with each other, although nothing is set in stone yet. While they’re planning for the future, they wouldn’t say whether or not they’re using the “L-word” just yet.
“Is that happening?” McKinney asked his girlfriend, to which she coyly responded, “I don’t know.”
“I think we’re just moving at our own pace,” the baseball coach shared. “One thing we both love a lot is keeping what we have between us.”
