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Irina Apologized For Her “Immature & Naive” Behavior On Love Is Blind
“Being on the show was like getting a mirror put in front of your face.”
Love Is Blind’s Irina Solomonova had plenty to answer for after Season 4 dropped on March 24. From laughing at a fellow cast member’s heartbreak to flirting with her best friend’s fiancé — all while continuously insulting her own partner, Zack Goytowski — viewers had strong reactions to her “mean girl” behavior. Following more than a week of fan backlash, Irina apologized for her mistreatment of her co-stars, as well as for triggering many of those streaming the Netflix reality dating series at home, in an Instagram video on April 2.
She began her “delayed” apology video by explaining that she “really wanted to take some time to process everything” before publicly responding to the fallout, though she’d recently apologized privately to the people who she “hurt and mistreated” while filming Love Is Blind about a year ago. “Second of all, I wanted to say I’m so, so sorry for the people that watched the show that felt frustrated, angry, hurt by the way I was mistreating people on the show,” the 26-year-old event planning business owner added. “It was very immature and naive of me in a lot of those situations.”
Specifically mentioning that Zack, Bliss Poureetezadi, Amber Wilder, Jackelina “Jackie” Bonds, and Micah Lussier don’t deserve to be mistreated, she continued, “I’m genuinely so, so sorry. Truly, I want to add value to people, and I want to make people feel seen and who I was on the show was the complete exact opposite of that person. And I feel like being on the show was like getting a mirror put in front of your face in the sense of seeing yourself from a different perspective. And that opened up so, so much to me.”
In closing, Irina shared that she’s still processing her actions and “figuring out” the person she wants to be moving forward. “But I know that none of those things were OK,” she added. “And I hope that one day I get to share my experience and what’s kind of going on with me emotionally during that experience.”
Before Irina had seen any of the Love Is Blind episodes, however, she told Bustle that she had no regrets about her behavior on the show. “I think everything happens for a reason, and I do generally believe that I was myself throughout the whole time,” she said on March 21. “I might not have been my best self in every moment, but I believe that I’ve learned from everything that happened. I just don’t want to hold onto a snippet of me that might be showed or seen when I feel like I trusted my gut and I went with what I had to do for myself.”
At the time, Irina cited her flirting with Micah’s fiancé, Paul Peden, in Mexico as one thing she would have handled differently, though. “I wish that had never happened,” she added. “But I feel like he did help me see that I didn’t have that energy toward Zack, and that was very helpful in my decision to not be with Zack. Honestly, I think everything happens for a reason, and I don’t regret anything.”
