90 Day Fiancé's Rebecca, 47, Says New Boyfriend Zied, 26, Is 'Completely Different' from Her Ex
Despite her past, Rebecca Parrot wasn’t always searching for a younger man.
The newest 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days star, 47, sat down with PEOPLE ahead of the reality show’s premiere to talk about her quest for love with 26-year-old Zied Hakimi, and the lessons she learned from her Moroccan ex-husband.
“Zied’s young, but this guy was a little bit younger,” she says of her ex. “I kind of knew that I was probably making a mistake doing this, but I still tried really hard. When I brought him over here, he instantly just became a different person. He was a very bad person.”
Rebecca, who’s been married three times, came across her Moroccan ex online — and insists their connection didn’t begin with a long-term relationship in mind.
“Supposedly, allegedly, it was homework for him to reach out to someone in America and create a dialogue so that he can learn better English,” she explains. “Now, whether that’s legit or not, I don’t know.”
After some time of online dating, her new man moved in with her in Canton, Georgia — but Rebecca immediately began to notice some “big red flags.”
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“I started seeing that he went from his phone being out all the time and not password protected to suddenly, he took his phone everywhere he went, and it had a password on it,” she explains.
So, Rebecca — who works as a private investigator — decided to put a GPS tracker on his car.
“When he thought I was going to go do my job, I was, but it was to do him,” she says. “I tracked him and he met a girl at a restaurant. She was his age, which made it even worse. He always denied everything.”
Now though, she hopes to change the course of her life with her new man: Zied from Tunisia. Like her Moroccan ex, the two met online.
“My Facebook started lighting up with all of these different men in the ‘people you may know,’” she explains. “One day, Zied’s face popped up and I clicked on his Facebook, and it said he lives in Lafayette, Louisiana. And I thought, my ex was from Morocco, Louisiana is nothing!”
She sent him a friend request and soon learned that Zied, in fact, didn’t live in Louisiana but 6,000 miles away in Tunisia.
“I was pretty mad because my first concern was that he did that intentionally, but he showed me a screenshot of where he lives, and it says Lafayette Province,” she explains. “Given the fact that I had married a Moroccan before and did the whole visa thing, I was like, I can’t do this again. I’m not doing this again.”
“But it was too late,” she adds. “I had already fallen in love with them.”
Rebecca explains that the two had an immediate connection and attraction and — like her last husband — didn’t intend to develop a romantic relationship. Despite the striking similarities with her ex, Rebecca insists that this new relationship is much different than that with her ex-husband.
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“He’s completely different. With my ex, I was very skeptical and very on edge,” she explains. “It was never ‘Oh my god, you’re the love of my life.’ The only reason that I am taking the opportunity to do this and go through that potential heartbreak again is because I legitimately feel a connection.”
“[But] would I go back to American men at this point?” she asks. “Probably not.”
While the connection exists, Rebecca has a huge secret to tell Zied when they finally meet.
“It was one of the hardest days of my life, is all I can say,” she teases, letting out a long sigh.
Rebecca will now navigate her budding relationship with Zied in front of the cameras in the newest season of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days — a reality show that follows couples before they begin the K-1 Visa process.
The season’s first episode airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on TLC.
