Nick Viall ‘Carded’ Now-Fiancee Natalie Joy Before They Dated, Admits Their 18-Year Age Gap Made Him ‘Self-Conscious’

usmagazine.com:

Barely legal? Nick Viall was taken aback by how young his now-fiancée, Natalie Joy, was when they first met on social media.“We started messaging [online], and I carded her,” Viall, 42, recalled during the Wednesday, May 3, episode of “The Squeeze” podcast, noting there is an 18-year age gap between the pair. “I wanted to make sure she was a real person.”Joy, 24, remembered the Bachelor alum asking for her driver’s license before he officially asked her out. “He was like, ‘I want to see your ID,'” the surgical technician told married cohosts Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dome.“The age [gap], at the time, I was very self-conscious about.

I was very guarded,” Viall confessed, explaining that he initially told Joy they “would never date.”The “Viall Files” podcast host even admitted that he turned down his partner “so many times” because of their age difference and the long distance.Despite initial hesitations, the former Bachelorette contestant took the plunge and officially began dating Joy in summer 2020 after first crossing paths in late 2019.“She slid into my DMs.

We messaged for a couple of weeks. We met up in New York,” Viall told the Twilight actor, 31, and his wife, 26, of the couple’s initial in-person meeting. “I think we were both thinking the other person was a little crazy.

We kind of both knew we’d end up spending the weekend together. I think we were both pretty guarded.”Joy, for her part, was all-in from the start. “I knew after that weekend, I was like, ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this man.’ And I knew it and he didn’t,” she confessed to the listeners. “So I was like, ‘I’m just going to hang on because he’ll come around.’ So I asked him several times to date me.”The Alabama native and the TV