Rhian Sugden has paid for boyfriends’ holidays, covered most of the dinners she can remember and is “99% confident” she earns more than any man across the table.
She still expects him to pay.
The former Page 3 model, who is married to actor Oliver Mellor, made the admission on the Option One Podcast, presented by Babestation, as reported by Creatorzine.
She is also the first to say the problem starts with her.
Paid for the holiday, no cocktail in return
Money has caused friction across her relationships, and holidays are a particular sore point.
Rhian described funding entire trips, only for partners to stop short of buying her a drink.
“I’m thinking I’m paying for this holiday,” she said. “And you can’t even, like, take me out for a cocktail.
“I think it’s a me problem that I’ve caused because I shouldn’t have paid for the whole holiday.”
Asked whether she would date a man who earned significantly less than her, she said yes, with a caveat she could clearly see coming.
“Yes, I think I would, but I’d get myself into the same scenario again where I’d be paying for everything,” she said. “The resentment would be building up.”
‘In the bed that I’ve paid for’
The resentment doesn’t need a beach to flare up.
A partner wanting an early night will do.
“There’s a lot of resentment in my current relationship and past relationships about money,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll say, oh, can we all have dinner together?
“And if he’s like, oh, I’m not in the mood tonight, I want to go to bed. I’m kind of like, in the bed that I’ve paid for.”
Rhian later clarified she was describing her current and past relationships generally, not only her marriage.
Why she walks when a man lets her pay
First dates follow their own rules. If he asked, he pays.
“I do expect a man to pay on the first date, actually, especially if he’s initiated the date,” she said. “I bring this on myself.
So this is a me problem.
“But I always feel guilty because when I go on dates, I’m 99% confident that I earn more money than my date.”
The guilt gets worse when she has ordered expensive food or wine. So she offers.
That’s where it goes wrong.
“Sometimes the guys go no, I’ll get it.
And then I’ll say, right, well we’ll split it.
But never has the guy actually got it. It’s always been me.
“And then as soon as that happened, I left.
And that’s a red flag for me. But it’s my fault because I’ve caused a red flag.”
The business lunch that won her over
The man who finally got it right wasn’t even on a date.
A business contact quietly settled their restaurant bill before it reached the table, something Rhian said had never happened to her before.
“I went to a business meeting the other month.
This is the first time that this has ever happened to me. I was blown away,” she said.
“I even said to the guy and I said to Oliver afterwards, if that was a date, I would have gone straight back to his hotel with him because I was so impressed.
That was a turn-on for me.”
Oliver’s response went unrecorded.
Why It Matters
Rhian’s dilemma will sound familiar to plenty of women who earn from their image, from glamour models to subscription creators and influencers, many of whom out-earn the people they date.
Traditional dating scripts assume the man brings the bigger pay packet.
When he doesn’t, nobody quite knows who reaches for the card, and the higher earner can end up resenting the bill and herself for paying it.
Who pays is still the internet’s favourite fight
The first-date bill debate resurfaces on TikTok and podcasts with clockwork regularity, and it rarely ends in agreement.
Rhian’s version just comes with a bigger bill attached.
What happens next
She has diagnosed the problem herself, several times, in a single interview.
The fix sounds simple enough.
Stop offering. Whether she can bring herself to do it is another matter.
