MELINDA Messenger has revealed for the first time that she met her new fiance while filming TV challenge show SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Until now it was thought The Sun’s page three legend had met Dr Raj Joshi while on a charity hike in Nepal, but she has now told for the first time how they grew close on the Channel 4 challenge programme.
After meeting in the Vietnamese jungle last September, the show medic, 47, popped the question this July while they holidayed in New Zealand.
Melinda, 52, told The Sun: “That’s the greatest thing that came out the show for me!
“So when I came out, I was crying, sweat, blood tears, and wee, I am not kidding you, in this old sports bra and cycling shorts covered in bruises and yeah, foot rot.
“The producer was like, ‘do you want to see the doctor? You may as well. Just pop in and just have a quick chat.’
“We just carried on chatting after that and that was it!
“So the show changed my life in more ways than one, and I’m truly thankful for that.”
Melinda features on the show, which returns on Tuesday at 9.30pm, alongside Matt Hancock, former footballer Jermaine Pennant and singer Gareth Gates.
She added: “It wasn’t about winning it or being good or anything like that. That didn’t matter. “Actually, what I got from it was way more valuable and will last me a lifetime.
“That’s how we met! The most surreal time for me.”
Mum-of-three Melinda, who first modelled in The Sun in 1997, confirmed her happy news in August with a post online.
She wrote: “We’ve got some very happy news to share. @raj.joshi.expedition and I got engaged in beautiful New Zealand at Matariki, the Māori New year, and we are getting married next year.”
Melinda was married to the father of her children, therapist Wayne Roberts, for 14 years before their split in 2012.
She has been single for three years following a string of post-divorce romances, including one with ski instructor Warren Smith, who she met on reality show The Jump, and most recently an eight-month relationship with Royal Marine Chris Harding, who she met on Celebrity First Dates, which ended in 2019.
