Cara Maria Sorbello is ready for her next challenge with boyfriend Paulie Calafiore — and that means saying goodbye to her self-proclaimed “mistress” title.
“We definitely want kids and we want marriage,” Calafiore, 34, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, June 27, while sitting alongside his longtime girlfriend, 37.
While Sorbello agreed with her partner, she revealed that she wasn’t always keen on the idea of saying “I do,” especially when she started dating Calafiore in summer 2018.
“[During] these five years, like, I’ve come back to who I am. I feel like a whole different person,” the Challenge: Battle of the Bloodlines winner told Us, noting that before Calafiore, she was in some “unhealthy and toxic relationships,” which affected her outlook on marriage. “I’ve always been like, ‘I’m never gonna get married. I’m never having kids.’”
Sorbello confessed: “Even when I started [seeing] him, [I said], ‘Just so you know … if you wanna get married, I’ll be your mistress. But, like, I’m never gonna get married.’”
Calafiore recalled his girlfriend’s past remarks, telling Us, “[During] meet and greets she’d be like, ‘No, I’m happy being the mistress.’ And I’m like, ‘We’re dating!’”
Sorbello remembered being “hardheaded” at the start of her romance with the fellow reality star due to “all the trauma” she’d been through. Now, however, she’s changed her tune and is ready to move forward.
“I absolutely would love to marry [Paulie]. I’ve never said that before, but [Paulie is] the person that I see for the rest of my life,” Sorbello said during the joint interview before addressing her partner. “I f—king love you. I 1,000 percent would marry you. Like, this is my best friend.”
Calafiore, for his part, noted that although his brother just got engaged and his sister had a baby, there is no “pressure” from the pair’s families on when they’ll take the next step.
“I think everybody kind of looks at us, even in our families, where it’s like, ‘They’re kind of unconventional children,’” he told Us. “I think they expect us to randomly last minute be like, ‘Hey guys, we just got married.’”
Sorbello, however, pointed out that her Sicilian father “wants a little race car driver so bad,” so the topic of kids has come up. Although she revealed she previously was against becoming a mother, her relationship with Calafiore has also changed that plan.
“I’m, like, ‘One day, yeah, [we’ll have] a couple little soccer boys,’” she said, adding that in the past she didn’t want to put her body through a pregnancy. “Because this is my person — so through and through of above and beyond on a million different levels — [I’m in]. Like the fact that I am actually saying like, ‘Yes, I’m open to having children.’ I don’t think anybody who stands how huge that is.”
Her partner, however, completely understood, telling Us, “It’s kinda a big deal.”
Calafiore and Sorbello met in 2018 while competing on The Challenge: Final Reckoning. During the show, they didn’t hook up, but the pair did form a bond, which resulted in Calafiore breaking up with his then-girlfriend, Bachelor alum Danielle Maltby.
Sorbello and Calafiore briefly split in late 2018 after Sorbello realized that Calafiore was still talking to Maltby, now 37. The MTV personalities gave their romance a second chance in early 2019 and have been together ever since.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
