Spoiler alert! If you haven’t watched season 5 of Love Is Blind and the reunion special, proceed with caution.
He was a man with a love for American flags and a distaste for makeup, and she was a girl looking for her “sugar butt.” The reunion between Love Is Blind exes Jared “JP” Pierce and Taylor Rue was one of the most highly anticipated face-to-face confrontations on Sunday’s reunion special of the Netflix series.
But the discussion left many, including Taylor, confused. JP blamed the cameras in Mexico for making him nervous and causing him to retreat into his “shell,” while Taylor called him out for not trying.
And when co-hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey asked Taylor if she thought the real issue was the cameras, she said no.
“[It was] a lot deeper than that,” she said, later claiming, “I don’t think that he was attracted to me from the second we met each other. He gave me zero validation. When I asked about our future — as we saw — he didn’t answer. And on top of that, you belittled me and made me feel less than I am.”
JP apologized for his comments, but didn’t deny them.
“I’m sorry for that and I did not intend for that to come out that way and it came out wrong,” he said. “And I do feel bad for that, so I apologize. I genuinely wanted to just let you know that I thought you look beautiful without makeup. That was all I was trying to say. And it came out wrong.”
He went on to once again say the wrong thing, admitting that their first look moment was “shocking and off-putting,” saying he felt Taylor’s makeup was “kind of fake.”
ET spoke with both Taylor and JP separately right after they taped the reunion to break down the drama.
“I wanted the answer tonight, and I didn’t get it,” Taylor says of what really happened with JP in Mexico. “I stayed true to who I am and said what I needed to say, so I feel good about that.”
As for negative fan reactions to JP, Taylor notes, “I don’t blame them for being upset, but he’s also human and humans make mistakes. Sometimes we say things and, I don’t know, we take them out of content. I don’t blame people for being upset. What he did was wrong. What he said was wrong, but we’re filmed and we’re human and it’s OK to make mistakes.”
Though she’s currently seeing someone in a new romance, Taylor says that if that didn’t work out, she’d be open to trying reality TV again.
As for JP, he continues to point to Taylor’s makeup, telling ET, “I think the makeup did play a big part of it. I think it was partly my fault that I let that get in between us and start us off on the wrong foot in Mexico and it just boiled over in the end.”
In terms of his response to angry fans, he adds, “I would just like to say that the way it came out wasn’t the way I meant it and sometimes we don’t always say the right things, and I probably should have handled things a lot differently.”
As for his current relationship, JP says they’ve been together for about a year.
“Things are going great. She’s awesome and I really love her and we’re going to move in together soon,” he shares.
Season 5 of Love Is Blind as well as the reunion special are currently streaming on Netflix.
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