“Love Is Blind”'s Aaliyah on whether she thinks Lydia secretly planned to reunite with Uche
Warning: This article contains spoilers about Love Is Blind season 5, episodes 1-7.
The wildest drama happening on this season of Love Is Blind just keeps getting weirder.
In the first four episodes, viewers were left reeling after Uche revealed to Aaliyah that his ex from the real world is in the pods with them — and it's none other than Aaliyah's supposed pod BFF Lydia. The strange comments Lydia had been making to Aaliyah earlier about how they're the "same" finally made sense, because Lydia knew that Aaliyah was falling in love with her ex. The first four episodes ended on a cliffhanger, as Uche found out from producers that Aaliyah decided to leave the show because of the situation with Lydia — but the drama wasn't over just yet.
Courtesy of Netflix Aaliyah and Lydia on 'Love Is Blind'
In episode 5 (now streaming on Netflix), Uche immediately calls Aaliyah (with the help of producers) to find out why she left, and she tells him that, in the pods, she had an exchange with Lydia that went wrong, and she thinks Lydia saw an email while at Uche's apartment and applied to be on the show to get him back. They ultimately get into a fight about how Aaliyah was "selfish" to leave without talking to him, and he ends the call and says he never wants to see her again.
But at the end of episode 6 and beginning of episode 7, Aaliyah returns to meet Uche in person. They go out to lunch to discuss everything that happened in the pods, why Aaliyah left without talking to him, and whether they could continue their relationship in the real world. Uche finally tells Aaliyah the ugly truth about his past with Lydia — he claims he discovered Lydia had been doing things to "invade [his] privacy" and lied to him about it. They broke up and got back together multiple times, but Uche says he began receiving messages from people he knew about Lydia stalking their social media, and after she took a picture of his driveway with a text that said "I see you," he panicked and broke it off with her. But he regrets not telling Aaliyah the truth sooner in the pods because she could have kept her guard up with Lydia.
After they both admit they still love each other, Uche tells Aaliyah that it's over because of the way she kept following him on social media only to then block him multiple times, as well as her decision to run instead of talking things through with him.
As for whether Aaliyah believes Lydia actually planned the whole thing to get cast and reunite with Uche in the pods, she still hasn't made up her mind. "I'm not sure, to be honest with you," Aaliyah tells EW. "I really don't know. There were emotions on both sides which I feel were valid emotions. Just stepping outside of myself, woman to woman, I could kind of understand how she was feeling. But also, I realized I just truly was not comfortable with the situation."
Even though she didn't end up making things work with Uche, Aaliyah doesn't regret leaving the pods. "It was the right decision," she says. "I hate that anybody would feel abandoned, you know what I mean? That was something that he and I had to work through and we've had several conversations about it and I think now there's a deep mutual understanding on both sides. We both respect one another and understand our position on both sides of how we were both feeling and dealing with the situation. It was pretty tough on both sides."
Courtesy Netflix Uche on 'Love Is Blind'
That's why she was ultimately glad she decided to meet up with Uche for what became their breakup lunch. "It was pretty overwhelming, to be honest," she says of what Uche told her at that meeting about Lydia. "But it's their story to tell, and I feel like he was going to have his perspective on things, and I was open to hearing that. That was a part of the piece of closure I needed too, to understand how did this all happen? How did this all come about? It was actually really nice to interact with him in that way and have a mature conversation and just gain some more understanding as to what really happened."
Love Is Blind season 5 releases new episodes on Fridays, leading up to the Oct. 13 finale.
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