Back to reality! Jono Castano's girlfriend Emily Ryder heads back to her regular job as an air hostess for Virgin amid purporting her VERY glamorous life as an influencer on Instagram

She often paints a picture of a jet-set, influencer lifestyle on social media. 

But it was back to reality for Jono Castano's girlfriend Emily Ryder, 29, last week, as she headed to work as an air hostess with budget airline Virgin Australia. 

The Instagram model was seen getting dropped off at the airport by her personal trainer boyfriend, 35, looking worlds away from the social media siren fans are used to seeing. 

Emily was dressed for duty in a conservative white blouse, red skirt, and purple neck tie, completing her look with tan stockings and sensible flat shoes. 

She wore her blonde hair in a low bun secured with a scrunchie and sported a heavy makeup look. 

Before she headed inside, the loved-up couple shared an affectionate farewell outside the airport.

At one point, the fitness entrepreneur gently held her close before the pair shared a sweet kiss goodbye, appearing reluctant to part ways before her shift.

After their embrace, Emily gathered her belongings and made her way toward the terminal while Jono watched on.

While Emily regularly gives followers a glimpse into her glamorous life online - posting photos of tropical holidays with Jono, bikini snaps in idyllic beachside locations and sipping cocktails beside luxury hotel pools - she rarely shares images of herself actually working as a flight attendant.

When she does, she chooses not to tag her employer or show much of her uniform.  

Her Instagram page is instead filled with polished snapshots, presenting a far more glamorous image than the early starts and long hours that come with working in aviation.

It comes as Jono and Emily face questions over the authenticity of his their Instagram following, after analytics revealed a series of unusual spikes in followers for both of them. 

Jono, who has 986,000 followers, has stayed silent after data showed his account gained 12,046 followers on January 28 - despite losing 318 the day before. The following day, he lost another 1,116 followers.

The biggest jump came on February 4, when his account added 11,443 followers, even though he had been seeing consistent daily losses in the days prior.

Meanwhile, Emily, who has 30,100 followers, saw her account surge by 5,798 on February 5, despite not posting that day.

On surrounding days, her follower changes ranged from a drop of nine to a rise of 42.

When approached by Daily Mail for comment, Jono addressed the concerns cheekily, sharing a week-old Instagram clip of himself scrolling through his follower analytics with a bemused expression. 

He also shared a 'pointed eyes' emoji with Daily Mail, suggesting he sees the controversy as overblown.

Jono is, of course, no stranger to controversy. 

In February, Daily Mail Australia revealed that several celebrities including Rebel Wilson had distanced themselves from Jono. 

Wilson did once have a professional relationship with Castano - he trained her during a time when she lost a significant amount of weight in 2020. 

However sources say she eventually grew tired of seeing how frequently her name appeared in media stories referencing him or his Kensington gym, Acero.

A spokesperson for Wilson claimed as much in an email to Daily Mail Australia in February. 

They said the Bridesmaids actress had paid Castano for several workouts, but ceased training with him when she returned from overseas a few months later.

The representative went on to claim that, as Castano's prior association with Wilson helped his profile grow, her team reached out to Castano, seeking to put some distance between them.

Something similar appears to have happened in May 2023, when a local representative for Rita Ora contacted the Mail to request her name be removed from an article that described Castano as her Australian trainer.

The email clarified that the British singer - who is married to Oscar-winning New Zealand film director Taika Waititi - had only worked with Castano 'two to three times' and had been training with someone else during her recent visit to the country.

A year later, in 2024, Castano released a book titled It Starts Today, leaning into his by-then well-established reputation as a trainer.

According to industry murmurs, the wording on the cover was tweaked after Wilson's camp objected.

Indeed, the book's original tagline described Castano as 'personal trainer to Rebel Wilson, Richard Branson and Hugh Sheridan'. 

It was later updated to: 'Celebrity personal trainer and founder of Acero gym'.

We are not suggesting Castano hasn't trained the celebrities he namechecks - there is footage of them working out together - nor are we saying he was personally responsible for the original wording on his book cover or, indeed, for how the press chose to frame him as a trainer-to-the-stars.

Further, it's not unusual in the fitness and entertainment industries for celebrity training relationships to be short-term, especially when travel schedules or filming commitments intervene.

But in these two cases, it appears the former clients preferred not to be continually linked to Castano long after their time training together.

Castano also weathered a media firestorm earlier this year, following a spat with ex-girlfriend Simone Holtznagel, the mother of his nearly two-year-old daughter Gia. 

Their dispute was sparked when Simone snapped following a supervised visit, revealing to her Instagram followers that Jono had only been paying $40 a week in child support until relatively recently.

Jono has strongly denied Simone's claims he was underpaying her, sharing evidence of money transfers in the thousands since December.

However, he did acknowledge that, until late last year, he had been paying his ex just $45 a week because they 'couldn't agree' on an amount for child support, adding that Simone had apparently asked for an 'insane' sum he couldn't afford.

Simone's explosive post, which she shared on her Instagram Stories on Friday, February 6, showed her dancing around her living room with their toddler in her arms – while flipping the bird.

'My purely hypothetical, calm reaction when my BD [baby daddy] rocks up 45 minutes late to his supervised visit,' she wrote over the top of the video.

Simone then took a swipe at Jono's ex–wife and business partner, Amy, and his girlfriend, Emily Ryder, before making claims about his driver's licence.

'[Arriving] in his new girlfriend's car, being driven by his current wife – because neither of them own a vehicle,' she wrote.

'This is the same "celebrity trainer" who hasn't had a consistent licence in four years and only just discovered paying more than $40 a week in child support is a thing.

'And then, has the audacity to ask if I'm pregnant because I "have a tummy". The confidence. The delusion. The absolute lack of self–awareness.'

On Saturday morning, hours after Simone's post went live and was viewed thousands of times, Jono shared his own rebuttal video to Instagram.

He claimed Simone's post was full of 'lies', before showing screenshots of bank transactions that showed him sending his ex almost $8,500 since December.

However, he did concede he'd been making significantly lower payments before then.

Regarding Simone's claim that Jono had asked if she was pregnant because of her 'tummy', Jono explained that what he'd really said was that he was 'very happy for Gia if you are pregnant'.