The Bachelor contestant, divorcee Megan Marx, leaves church-lifestyle for bachelorette living

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LIFE has certainly moved on for The Bachelor frontrunner Megan Marx since parting ways with the strict religious order that she grew up in.

Speaking to Confidential, the 27-year-old said that she was raised in a sheltered environment where alcohol, bikinis and nightclubs were prohibited, although declined to call it a cult when asked about it.

“It wasn’t like I was in a commune, and what was reported about me having an arranged marriage wasn’t true. There are misconceptions because I got married so young, I got married when I was 18 years old to a guy I’d been dating since I was 14,” she said about the church, which she has declined to name.

“Life inside was different to most people’s upbringing — I didn’t watch TV or movies, and when I turned 18 it wasn’t like ‘Yeah, let’s go to a nightclub’, I got married instead. I couldn’t go on holidays for more than a week, because you had to be at church every Sunday.”

Since leaving the strict values as a teenager with her then-husband, Marx — who got divorced at 22 — has wholeheartedly embraced life on the outside.

Responding to a question for alumni on her high school’s Facebook page, Marx wrote “I’ve taken so many drugs I don’t know where I am ... Pretty sure I’m at the supermarket though if we have to be specific.”

She attended Strathalbyn Christian College, a Christian school with the motto of “Learning Gods Way”.

Her private high school, Strathalbyn Christian College was associated with Geraldton Church of Christ when the school was founded in 1979

It’s certainly a contrast to life on the Bachelor set where the women vying for Richie’s heart — jokingly called “the sisterwives” by fellow contestant Nikki — are frequently filmed in bikinis and mandatory cocktail parties, where alcohol is free-flowing for a number of hours.