Cole and Zanab.Photo: NETFLIX
This post contains spoilers from the season 3 finale ofLove Is Blind.
It appears love truly was not blind forCole Barnettand Zanab Jaffrey.
The couple, who met and got engaged on season 3 ofLove Is Blind, had a very dramatic ending to their love story as Zanab, 32, said “I don’t” to Cole at the altar following several ups and downs in their relationship.
“You have disrespected me, you have insulted me, you have critiqued me, and for what it’s worth, you have single-handedly shattered my self-confidence,” she told Cole in front of their wedding guests. “And the messed up thing is I know love you… but love shouldn’t feel this way. I can’t marry you.”
Netflix
As Zanab suggested, there was allegedly much more than unfolded between them. Fans got a glimpse of the drama during the season 3 reunion, in which Zanab claimed Cole repeatedly tried to control her eating habits and got another woman’s number before kissing her at his bachelor party. (Cole denied all of the accusations, though Zanab insisted he told her about the woman himself.)
Another issue between Cole and Zanab was the fact that Cole’s family refused to be part of theirLove Is Blindjourney. For Zanab, that didn’t sit well, especially since she had lost both her biological parents.
“Not to toot my own horn; parents love me,” she shares. “I would’ve loved the chance to meet them, win them over, maybe if Cole had the support of his family. I did get to meet some of his friends and they said, ‘Wow, we love her for you.’ I do think when we had our highs, I brought out a different side of Cole and I think maybe we wouldn’t have ended up where we did. So I do think it could have made a difference? Absolutely.”
Despite that, Zanab says she has no regrets about the way her journey panned out on the show.
“Cole was my person. Cole was the only person in that experiment for me, so I am glad I chose him. I’m glad he taught me what he did, and I’m glad I got to see who he really is,” she says.
As for Cole, he admits to PEOPLE that there are some things he would’ve changed if he could go back.
“It’s obvious with my story, I think we all know the things that I could change,” he says. “But one thing I think hasn’t been spoken to a lot is that the probability of coming out of the pods and really being with someone who y’all’s lives and personalities are just going to mesh perfectly is not huge.”
“It really looks like our biggest issue was this physical aspect, and it wasn’t. Our biggest issue was just compatibility and personality,” he continues. “I’m glad I did it with Zay, but it’s just, that was part of the test of the experiment, seeing if it could work in the real world, and ours just didn’t. So, yes, I know the mistakes that I and she both made that we could change along the way, but that’s life.”
Speaking to Zanab’s brutally honest words at the altar, Cole says hearing it “was horrible.”
“I didn’t know what to think, and that’s why we didn’t talk for a long time afterwards is because I didn’t know how I was ever going to process that,” he notes. “I didn’t want to talk to her because I felt betrayed and I felt like she had really duped me and brought me to that moment to do that to me… I wish we could do it over and have more conversations beforehand.”
One particular thing he wants to clarify from his past? The moment he asked Zanab if she was bipolar before their wedding.
“Everyone keeps asking me about the bipolar comment and I think that’s why I might have asked it is because she was 1000% ready to marry me in one conversation,” he explains. “And then the next she’d be really upset at me for something. And it was like, ‘Wait, how are you 1000% ready to marry me?'”
“So I was confused going into it,” he continues. “Looking back now, I’m glad I didn’t say ‘yes’ because we obviously weren’t ready to get married. But everything in me would’ve wished to get married. I’m jealous of these [other] guys… Look at what they have, that’s what we all wanted.”
Though Zanab insisted that she and Cole “do not speak,” Cole has a different perspective.
“Zay and I are having a lot of hard conversations and working through a lot of our baggage from our relationship,” he says. “We talked a few weeks ago, and then we just recently here in the last week have been talking a lot. So we care about each other a lot, but we have a lot of pain from our past.”
Despite all of the “pain” they went through, Zanab confirmed during the reunion that she has “completely forgiven” Cole for everything.
“I don’t want you to have another failed relationship, I want you to find your forever person, I want you to have exactly what you want. You do deserve that,” she said. “I forgave you the moment I walked away from you at that altar. I don’t hold anything against you, I don’t — I haven’t. I don’t have hate in my heart for you. I loved you very, very much and I wanted to get married, but you and me, it wasn’t good.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Season 3 ofLove Is Blindis now streaming in full on Netflix.
source: people.com
