For Michelle Young, saying “yes” to her fiancé Jack Leius’ proposal was much different than her engagement to ex Nayte Olukoya.
“They don’t compare at all,” Young, 31, said of her two engagements on the Tuesday, February 11, episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast. “Jack, he just calms my nervous system so much and he really puts my anxiety at bay. … It’s been really nice to just fully feel so comfortable in a relationship and so accepted and so loved. And he just is somebody who is always going to stick around.”
The former Bachelorette noted that her current relationship helped her realize that some of her past relationships weren’t as healthy as they seemed. “There’s times where I thought I had that feeling before, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like. This is what actually a healthy relationship feels like and how it operates,’” she explained. “And so, we just have a really great system, really great communication.”
Young debuted her relationship with Leius, 27, via Instagram in October 2023. “Hit the Jackpot with you 
,” she captioned sweet snaps of the two of them. Leius popped the question one year later, though the couple didn’t announce their engagement until December 2024.
Bachelorette’s Michelle Young and Jack Leius’ Relationship Timeline
Before finding love with Leius, Young gave her final rose to Olukoya, 30, on season 18 of The Bachelorette in 2021. However, the two called it quits after less than a year of dating in June 2022.
“Our relationship was tough. There’s lots of ups and downs, lots of arguments, lots of fights, and just not really clicking, not really seeing eye to eye,” Olukoya said on a September 2022 episode of “The Viall Files” podcast. “It was rocky. … Don’t get me wrong, we had amazing moments in between rockiness, but it was rocky.”
Young later stated that her and Olukoya’s split had “tainted” engagements for her on a February 2023 episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast. “It was my dream ring. I wanted the relationship to work. I was willing to put in work for the relationship. And I had the person take off,” she said at the time, adding, “I feel like that was literally kind of stripped away from me. So it pisses me off. But I’m also like, ‘Great, I can’t wait to do it, like, for real this next time with somebody who [I] really know will be there.’”
Bachelor’s Jade and Tanner Double Date With Michelle Young and BF Jack
Looking back on her Bachelor Nation romance on Tuesday’s podcast, Young said that her and Olukoya’s time on The Bachelorette didn’t necessarily set their relationship up for success. “You have to watch people go through a certain amount of life,” she said of building a strong romantic connection. “People pass away, you navigate through death together, you navigate through sickness together, you navigate through social media together. There’s so many different things that you navigate through together that you can kind of attempt to ask questions and see during that period of time getting to know each other.”
She continued: “You truly don’t know unless it’s this lengthy period of time. And so, do I fully believe you can 100 percent get to know somebody [on the show]? No. Can you take a risk and can that risk work out? Yes. Am I really incredibly happy that my risk didn’t work out? Hell yeah. I’m definitely with the person I’m supposed to be with and could not be happier.”
Young also teased at her and Leius’ wedding plans, revealing that they have a date and venue picked out for their Minnesota nuptials later this year. “He’s just such a gem. I don’t know how the hell I found him in Minnesota. I really don’t,” she gushed earlier in the episode. “But he, if anyone could get to know him, he’s literally a lovely man. He’s so wonderful.”
