Big Brother's Jess and Marty were Australia's sweethearts. She told us the real story behind the romance.

It was a love story straight out of a rom-com.

Beloved radio personality, Jess Hardy, was a fresh-faced 25-year-old when she became a housemate on season two of Big Brother Australia in 2002.

A bustling city gal with big dreams, Jess soon met fellow housemate Nathan 'Marty' Martin, a farm boy from Toodyay in Western Australia. And yes, sparks did fly.

It's an experience that Jess still cherishes. "I loved it. I really did," she told Mamamia in an exclusive chat.

"It's not often that you can actually look back at your 20s and see how you behaved."

Quickly, Jess and Marty's on-screen romance captivated the nation, leading them to be dubbed 'Australia's sweethearts'. Their whirlwind romance culminated in a televised wedding special, Marty and Jess: An Outback Wedding, in 2004.

Watch Jess and Marty exchange vows. Post continues after video.

This is the closest Australia ever got to having a royal wedding, imho.

However, the couple divorced in 2006, splitting roughly 15 months after their TV wedding.

Jess looks back at her relationship with Marty with fondness. "I loved the time we had in there [in the Big Brother house]. It's just a shame that when we both went back to resuming normal lives — we just couldn't make it work," she said.

"I do get upset in a way that there's someone that you had that experience with, you'll never be able to replicate something like that because we really were there as a team. I'm so happy that he's gone on to have the life that he wanted because we just couldn't make it work."

Once they left the house, Jess and Marty struggled to find a home base where they both could thrive.

"It was, unfortunately, a bit of an oil and water situation. I did really love him, but I just found living isolated on a farm and not being able to do what I thrive in was very difficult," she admits.

"I wish I could have just made love work but there were just so many other variables. Like my family was on the East Coast, his was on the West. If I ever had kids, Mum was way too far away," she continued.

"It's a sad thing because there was nothing wrong with him personally. We were both young, but I just feel like once the fun wore off, then reality set in," she continued.

"I never saw him anymore, like he'd go off to work. I thought I wanted to settle down, but I wasn't the settling type. I was still unsettled. He was ready to have kids and lock into that farm life and that way of living, and my lifestyle didn't really click with that, unfortunately."

Image: Ten.

It was a mutual decision to get divorced and Jess booked an overseas trip while she healed from the split.

"He drove me to the airport and we both were really teary saying goodbye because we kind of knew that that was really where it ended. He kept the house, I took the deposit we put into the house and that's when I fled overseas," she said.

Marty later remarried his second wife Lexi and they have three sons together: Sam, Billy and Joel.

As the years went by, Jess and Marty eventually lost touch.

"We did talk for a little while. But then once I started moving around because I've moved with radio a lot, we just lost touch. I did have one last text with him only a couple of years back. He remembered my best mate's phone number and he called him… I just wrote him a text back… it was really nice to know that we still could pick up where we last left off."

But keeping a friendship going has been tough.

"I'm so devastated that we could never really make a friendship work. It was just too hard to keep that going when he ended up having kids, and I've had boyfriends and things. But because I never really had that life myself, I didn't want to ever encroach on his family. It just wouldn't work — so we kind of left it there."

Jess still treasures the time they got to film their own reality show in Darwin.

"We had made our own little bubble up there. And we had the camera crew and production come up there and followed us around while we prepared a wedding — we honestly had the time of our lives."

And it didn't hurt that for the show Marty and Jess: An Outback Wedding, their wedding was paid for by the network.

"Yeah, they did. And did a magazine deal as well. So everything was covered. So we were like, how good is this idea? Let's do it."

Ultimately, Jess realised they weren't all that compatible as a couple.

"Probably not. You know what linked us? I think the humour. We really had the same humour, and I loved that about him," she said.

"But then things went pear-shaped and you didn't have that humour anymore. He was really regarded as family to me, and that's why I find it really hard because we went through so much together, and then to never talk again? I still think it was a beautiful connection."

Jess admitted that it wasn't fame that added pressure to the relationship; it was grief that Jess was struggling with at the same time.

"I lost my brother at the time, so I think that's what added pressure. I think that part of it was the most detrimental to us. That was hard," Jess recalled.

Jess' brother, Billy Hardy, was tragically killed in the 2002 Bali bombings. He was just 20 years old at the time.

"I really found that soul-destroying because we were meant to be so happy and I was on a high from the show. My brother was heavily involved in the show, he was there every week because I was pretty much up for nominations most weeks," she said.

Image: Ten.

"If it wasn't for that experience, I don't think we would have had those super highs just him and I. So there is a bit of a double-edged sword in it because I feel like at least we got that quality time together. But then to go from that great high to plummeting lows, it just ruined everything."

Jess shared that during the hardest moment of her life, paparazzi photographed her at her most vulnerable state.

"There was a photo of me bawling my eyes out waiting for a plane to come back in the hope that my brother was coming back from Bali… I don't regret the show at all because I just think everything that happens in life is meant to be. But that really did destroy me as a person."

For Jess, her relationship with Marty remains a formative experience in her life.

"It's interesting because I don't think I've ever really had the same type of relationship again. I've dated some guys and things like that, but it really cemented me that I'm not really wanting to have a long-term relationship when that failed. I have met guys, but I tend to go for the wrong ones."

In the years after their divorce, Jess has forged her own identity away from being one half of 'Marty and Jess from Big Brother'.

"When I was attached to him, I felt like I assumed this role where I didn't even want to drive the car if we went travelling. I let him drive, and now I've worked as a tour guide in Uluru. I've really powered through and showed my strength," she said.

"I don't think people have known the post-Marty/Jess more than the actual Marty/Jess. I don't think people know how much I've really slogged it out on my own and I'm actually quite proud of that without him."

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In the past two decades, Jess has worked for the ambulance services and done multiple successful radio hosting gigs.

"Every day I come to work and I laugh. And I've got cancer and I've got it in the rib, right? And I mean, I've had a double mastectomy and I've pushed through," she said.

Jess' breast cancer diagnosis began with her feeling like she was 'losing' her mind.

"I thought I was just a mad person… apparently, my friend said I was a completely different person and I knew something was off. And so, long story short, I've got all these tests done, it turned out that a brain infection was my body reacting to something else going on in my body, and it was the breast cancer."

Jess was surprised by the diagnosis because she didn't have the expected symptoms.

"All I had was one little rash on one breast and I thought that was a bit odd. I got my scans as usual, I got a mammogram and then they called me back in and said, 'Yeah, you've definitely got cancer in your body.' And by October, I had my breasts off."

Jess is currently doing hormone therapy and sees an oncologist monthly. "I can't actually cure it, but I can manage it," she said.

She is still working in radio and shares all her adventures on her hilarious Instagram page.

Feature image: Ten/Instagram/@jessradiogaga.