The body of a reality TV star has been discovered in a shallow backyard grave.

After going missing in the early hours of Sunday morning in California, the body of a former reality television star has been discovered buried in the backyard of a man claiming to be her secret lover.

Failing to return from an evening night out with a friend, 36-year-old Lisa Marie Naegle – who competed on E!’s 2010 reality series Bridalplasty – was first reported missing on Monday morning.

According to reports from TMZ, the nursing instructor originally told her husband she was going to attend a birthday party in Torrance, California, with her brother. She instead met up with one of her male students, Jackie Jerome Rogers.

While out, Harryman said he sent Naegle a text at around 2.30am asking where she was. Within moments, he said, Naegle called him and “she sounded really, really drunk. She said, ‘I’m going to get some food and then I’ll be home.’”

But two days later, the Bridalplasty competitor's body was found in a shallow grave on 34-year-old Rogers' property, having been bludgeoned with a hammer multiple times.

Naegle was eventually reported missing on Monday morning after her employer expressed concern at her failure to show up to work, and Harryman had spoken to her brother and Rogers himself.

According to Harryman, Rogers said he had left Naegle at the bar in Torrance, saying he had been tired and left her there to continue partying.

CCTV footage from the bar allegedly showed the pair leaving together and getting into Rogers' black SUV.

“We went and we looked at the film and she left with him,” Naegle's brother said. “He told everybody he left without her.”

When faced with the discrepancy, Rogers allegedly changed his story multiple times, telling police his inconsistencies were simply a bid to hide the pair's affair from the family.

“We begged and pleaded that he’d come to our home to kind of give us details on what time, where were things, and when he left her, but while he was talking to us and telling us his story, multiple different times he said he absolutely did not go home with her or did not take her home,” Naegle’s sister told ABC 7.

According to TMZ, Rogers reportedly admitted to striking Naegle in the head with a hammer multiple times after she said she wanted to break up with him and remain faithful to her husband.

It is understood that Harryman and Naegle had been planning to start a family in the near future.