Harry and Francesca Broke Up After Too Hot to Handle —Now They’re Looking at Rings

Let’s start with the inevitable: Harry and Francesca from Too Hot to Handle broke up after the Netflix series stopped filming about a year ago. In more surprising news: They’re back together and doing better than ever…despite being separated during quarantine. (Harry is in Los Angeles, but Francesca was encouraged to return home by the Canadian government.)

“I think it’s kind of lucky that we aren’t quarantined together because I feel like you’d have a child by the end of this,” Harry says to Francesca during our three-way phone call. So yeah, they’re doing well. And yes, I spoke to the somewhat infamous couple after they had a chance to watch the series.

Since the show dropped on Netflix, fans have had a lot of thoughts about Harry Jowsey, 22, and Francesca Farago, 27—the two contestants who gleefully broke the rules and lost the most amount of cash during the show by kissing, having sex, and, well, you saw it. But it was their first foray into coupledom that caused the most backlash: Harry initiated the first kiss and the show’s first rule break, costing the group $3,000. But somehow Harry managed to convince everyone that Francesca kissed him.

Considering this seemed to ostracize Francesca from the other contestants, viewers couldn’t help but wonder why the Instagram influencer ultimately forgave his actions and continued to pursue him throughout the season. “It was massively immature,” Harry admits. “I’m not going to deny that. I was a massive dickhead in that sense.” But he wants you to know, he’s not a total asshole.

Glamour caught up with Harry and Francesca to find out exactly what went down, what it’s like to mentally prepare for reality star “villain” status, and *checks notes* wedding rings?!

Glamour: Have you seen much of each other since the show stopped filming?

Francesca: We’ve seen each other as much as possible. We broke up for a few months. It was probably the best thing that could’ve happened because, when we got back together, we were stronger than ever. We just needed a few months to debrief. Now that we’re back, everything’s been amazing and couldn’t be happier with our relationship. I mean, minus the fact that we’re not in the same country right now. Other than that, it’s perfect.

What caused the breakup?

Harry: I think we had a few miscommunication areas, and we just didn’t see eye to eye on a couple of things. Plus, I was in Australia and New Zealand at the time. I was just packing up my life to get ready to do the big move. So it was a massively stressful time, and I think I dumped a lot of my stress and pressure on Francesca.

When we broke up, we just didn’t really know why. As soon as we saw each other again, we were like, “Hey, why did we break up?” We had to have that conversation because we were trying to figure it out.

Francesca: It needed to happen because it ended up making us stronger, the time apart that we had.

How are you guys keeping it together while you’re quarantining?

Francesca: I think we FaceTime probably 10 times a day. I’m always calling him. So we talk probably ridiculous amounts, I think.

Harry: We’ll sit on FaceTime. If we’re not talking, we’ll just sit there and enjoy each other’s company, as weird as that sounds. But probably that’s like two or three hours—if we’re just working or something like that, as long as I know that she’s right there, it’s kind of comforting.

Let’s cut to the chase—Too Hot to Handle rolled the tapes, and Harry, you initiated that first kiss. Can you explain yourself?

Harry: Okay, so obviously that happened. I think that was over the space of three days. It was massively immature. I’m not going to deny that. I was a massive dickhead in that sense, but at the time I think I was just angry at Francesca and myself because there was so much juicy stuff that happened in that time. So immediately once that happened, I was just being an immature little asshole and trying to find validation to try and make Francesca feel upset, like how I was feeling at that time. So I’m pretty sure I did apologize to you, Francesca, did I? I feel like I would have.

Francesca: Yeah, you apologized for it after we ended up talking again. There was a long period of time where we weren’t talking.

Francesca, what led to you forgiving Harry?

Francesca: We were there for a month, and at the time I didn’t know what Harry was doing behind my back to the extent that he was doing it. All I knew was that he outed me in front of the group. That scene, that’s what I knew. I didn’t know there were conversations in bed with Rhonda calling me toxic. I didn’t know there were boy chats in the room, saying that it was all me. I wasn’t aware of any of this.

So at the time when I was forgiving him, that made it a lot easier to forgive him because I just thought it was that group outing that he did to kind of throw me under the bus. Watching it back, it’s been hard, but I know Harry and I know the way he acts and I understand his immaturity at the time.

My friends have been like, “I’m so mad at him.” I’m like, “You guys, this was a year ago, there was a lot that happened.” We were there for a month. I don’t hold any animosity toward him. I still love him just as much.

Tell me about that kiss with Haley.

Everyone was against me and everyone believed Harry. I mean, I would believe Harry. His smile, his laugh, his energy. It’s way easier to take his side than it is to take my side, especially the girls. So it was easy to alienate me for something that they ended up all doing later anyways. They all lost money and everyone was happy when they did it, but they hated me for me doing it, even though I wasn’t the one lying.

So it was hard, but I felt like I got the group back with the kiss with Haley. That was my kind of little revenge, even though it ended up making the situation worse. It did feel good to kind of just be like, Screw you guys—this is for not believing me. This is my little revenge. Say bye-bye to $3,000.

Harry, was it hard to watch the date Francesca went on with Kori?

Harry: It’s obviously hard seeing stuff like that, but at the end of the day, I called Francesca right away and said, “Look, I’m so proud of you.”

Any doubts that I had about her or anything like that at that point in time, because I was stressed—I was pacing the palapa. I was an absolute mess when that happened. But now watching it back, I was just more confident because they even got a green light at that point. I was extremely proud of her and the fact that she had my back. I’m Francesca’s biggest hype man and cheerleader, so watching all that stuff back reassured me in the fact that we’re in this together.

So you two both enjoyed breaking the rules. Especially, Harry, you encouraged other people to break the rules too—

Harry: Oh yeah. Yeah, I’m a little bit of a villain. From my experience, every time me and Francesca broke the rules, we came out of it so much stronger. So I was kind of just like, “Hey, guys, maybe you should just explore that a little bit more.” Because I think people kind of hit a ceiling in their conversations and stuff like that. I don’t know, I guess physical touch does help building that deeper connection off the bat.

How do you feel about the backlash and how people have responded?

Harry: Look, I just got verified on Instagram, so I was DM-ing everyone. I thought I was the man. I was just like DM-ing Kourtney, Kendall, Khloé. I DM’d everyone on Instagram. Since, I’ve obviously unsent all those messages because that’s absolutely cringe. But yeah, that’s a 21-year-old Harry trying to think he’s cool. But now obviously watching my progression and stuff like that, I’m watching it all back, I’m just more than happy to be a part of something that’s going against the grain.

Francesca: I was expecting a lot worse of a reaction because living it, the whole house was against me. So the past year that we’ve been waiting for this to come out, I had anxiety about the entire planet, basically everyone’s who’s going to watch this, not liking me as well. So I’m surprised with the positive reaction that I’ve been getting.

So you’ve been preparing to be seen as a villain? How do you mentally prepare for that?

Francesca: I just have to stick to my guns and own everything I did. I knew that I had Harry to back me no matter what. So having him on my side has been extremely helpful as well and extremely comforting.

When Lana announced the winners, she had you two standing alone for a while. Everybody at first thought you two were the winners and said some shady shit. Rhonda said she didn’t think you guys were on the same level as her and Sharron. What did you think when you watched that?

Francesca: Bullshit. Harry, you want to go?

Harry: Francesca, I know you’ve got a lot to say about this.

Francesca: Personally, I didn’t think Sharron was genuine from the beginning. From day one, I saw right through him, and I still to this day don’t think he’s genuine.

I was basically so in love with Harry from day one. I knew right away. I just didn’t see it with them. And yeah, they had some conversations that, from my perspective, I wasn’t involved in those conversations. I didn’t see them bonding. I just kind of saw them hating on our relationship. Watching it back, I do see their connection’s stronger than I thought when I was there. But overall, me and Harry put ourselves in these crazy situations and we took the most risks. So I thought that we developed the most. To this day I still believe that.

How has your relationship with the rest of the cast been since this ended?

Francesca: So, before watching the show, me and the girls were a lot closer than we were during filming. Chloe and I have remained close, Nicole and I have remained close, Haley and I, of course, are still close. But post-show-watching, we haven’t really…we sort of group-chat. I think we’ve kind of just been focusing on ourselves and maintaining everything that’s been happening because it’s been a crazy weekend. I don’t hold any grudges toward any of the cast members. But I don’t really have a relationship with any of the other girls, minus Chloe, Nicole, and Hayley.

What are you going to do with your winnings?

Francesca: We’re going to obviously use it for something together because we won it together. I was just going to use it to go on a trip with him or buy a house with him or buy 10 dogs or something like that.

Going off that, when this quarantine is over in, like, 30 years—

Francesca: I’m ready to crawl across the border if I have to, honestly, at this point.

What’s next for you as a couple?

Harry: Francesca’s looking at moving in or moving to L.A. And then we want to get a house so we can have a couple of goats and chickens and four dogs, which is ideal. But I think once we live together for probably four days I’ll want to marry her. So that’s the next step.

Whoa. Is that a proposal during this interview, or have you guys already talked about marriage?

Harry: We’ve got a shared folder of wedding rings. So yeah, we’ve talked about it.

Emily Tannenbaum is a contributing writer and weekend editor at Glamour. Follow her on Twitter.

Originally Appeared on Glamour