Love Is Blind‘s Lydia & Aaliyah Gave a Sneaky Update to Their Friendship After That Uche Twist
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Warning: Love Is Blind Season 5 spoilers ahead. The shock heard around The Pods. Ever since their past was revealed in Episode 3, viewers have had questions about why Uche and Lydia broke up from Love Is Blind Season 5 and the real reason for their split before their love triangle with Aaliyah.
Uche Okoroha, Lydia Velez Arleen Gonzalez, and Aaliyah were three of more than two dozen contestants on Love Is Blind Season 5, which premiered on Netflix in September 2023. Love Is Blind, which premiered its first season in February 2020, follows around 30 men and women over the course of a couple weeks as they speed-date in “Pods,” where they can talk to each other but not see each other. During the 10 days, the couples can decide if they want to get engaged—still sight unseen. After the proposal, the couples meet face-to-face for the first time and go on vacation at a resort in Mexico, where they learn more about each other and meet the other couples. After the trip, the couples, who all live in the same city, return to the real world and move into an apartment together as they meet each other’s families and friends and prepare for their weddings. At the altar on their wedding days, the couples must decide whether to marry or break up as they answer the age-old question of if love can be truly blind.
More from StyleCaster
Since the premiere of Love Is Blind, the show has become one of Netflix’s highest-rated series, with more than 30 million views in its first two months. “Across the world, everybody feels the same way: Everyone wants to be loved for who they are on the inside. It doesn’t matter where you live, what you look like, how old you are, what your background is, which class you know, or social structure you feel like you’re a part of, everyone wants to be loved for who they are,” creator Chris Coelen told Variety in 2020. “In today’s society we’ve got all these ways to find love through dating apps and technology. Those things sort of counterintuitively have made people feel disposable. They’ve made people feel like it’s all surface level. It does the opposite thing it was supposed to do. So we thought, what if we took everybody’s devices away, how could we get them to focus on connecting with other people?”
Coelen also told Variety about how the connections on Love Is Blind were based on choice, which is why the relationships were that much stronger. “It was incredibly scary because nobody had to do anything, versus a show like we do Married at First Sight, you sign up and you know, you’re getting married to a stranger. Here, nobody had to do anything. It was if you find someone, if you choose. Which is so scary. They don’t have to go through with the wedding ceremony,” he said. “But assuming they found someone, could that love overcome any judgment in the real world? That’s an incredibly fascinating question. And that’s what we set out to try to examine.”
Click here to read the full article.
But back to Uche, Lydia, and Aaliyah. So why did Uche and Lydia break up from Love Is Blind Season 5 and what happened to their relationships with Aaliyah after their past was revealed? Read on for what we know about Uche and Lydia on Love Is Blind Season 5 and the real reason for their split.
1. Why did Uche and Lydia break up from Love Is Blind Season 5?
Why did Uche and Lydia break up from Love Is Blind Season 5? Uche revealed in Episode 3 that he and Lydia, who got engaged to Milton, dated before Love Is Blind Season 5 started filming. The reveal came during a conversation between Uche and Aaliyah, his top choice and Lydia’s best friend in The Pods. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. One of my dates on the first day, I walked into The Pods, and I started talking. The person seemed to recognize my voice and know certain things about me. It is a girl that I have dated in the past,” Uche said. “It’s Lydia.”
In Episode 4, Love Is Blind showed a flashback of Uche and Lydia’s conversation, in which Lydia recognized Uche based on his voice. “My name is Uche,” Uche says, to which Lydia responds, “Fuck!” Uche then laughs and say, “That’s not the reaction I was expecting.” Lydia then tells Uche things about himself. “Your name is Uche Okoroha. You’re a lawyer, have a business.” When Uche doesn’t recognize Lydia’s voice, Lydia tells him that he knows her from outside of The Pods. When Uche figures out that it’s Lydia, Lydia asks him if he should take them both being on Love Is Blind Season 5 as a sign for them to get back together. “Is this a sign that we should cut the crap and start at zero? A blessing in disguise?” Lydia says, to which Uche doesn’t agree. “I don’t think we should do that because it ruins the experiment.” Lydia then asks, “So you don’t think it’s worth it to get to know each other more?” Uche responds, “I don’t think it’s genuine to the experience because we already know each other.”
In his conversation with Aaliyah, Uche explained that he and Lydia dated for a few months but he broke up with her because he didn’t think they were a right fit. “I didn’t think we were that compatible, so I ended things. It hurt me so much,” he said. “It hurt me so much because she deserves an amazing person who is completely sure about her, and I really hope she finds that.” Lydia leaves The Pods to take a second to collect herself. When she returns, she tells Uche about how Lydia made odd comments about Uche before Aaliyah learned they dated. “She’s been making comments. She’s been saying things, and I’m like, ‘How do you know this?’ Even when we had our disagreement, she was the first person to come console me and encourage me and told me that, ‘If he doesn’t make this right, it’s on him.’ She just kept saying all the right things. She’s told me multiple times, ‘I just see myself in you. We are almost the same woman.’ It’s just weird.”
When Aaliyah tells Lydia about what Uche told her, Lydia explained that Uche broke up with her because she had become dependent on him as one of the few people she knew in Houston. “Uche met me when I was at a low point in my life. He was vulnerable with me. I was vulnerable with him. I do feel like when we met and we were dating, he just felt that we would have had to take up too much. Like, ‘Shit, she barely has friends here. She doesn’t have family here. I’ll have to be everything for her.’ I didn’t want to lose him. It was I guess not meant to be,” Lydia said.
Lydia also confirmed that she wanted to continue being friends with Aaliyah and that she doesn’t still have feelings for Uche. Aaliyah became iffy about Lydia when she continued to tell Aaliyah information about Uche’s life without her asking, such as details about his dog, his friends, his job, his house, and his car. Lydia also revealed to Aaliyah that she and Uche last saw each other three months ago before Love Is Blind Season 5 started filming, and they had sex. “You had sex three months ago, and I’m supposed to feel like that’s no big deal? I don’t like that. I would never put myself in a situation like this in my actual life,” Aaliyah said in a confessional interview. At the end of Episode 4, a producer tells Uche that Aaliyah had decided to leave the show, ending their relationship.
So where are Lydia, Uche, and Aaliyah from Love Is Blind Season 5 now? At the time Love Is Blind Season 5 premiered, Lydia and Uche were not following each other on Instagram. Aaliyah and Uche also were not following each other. Lydia and Aaliyah also were not following each other, which suggests that they’re not still friends after their drama with Uche.
In an interview with E! News in September 2023, Aaliyah confirmed that she and Uche were not still together after Love Is Blind Season 5. “Making the decision to leave, I felt like it was the best thing for me. It was really hard because I had a lot of love for him,” she said. “At the moment, I was like, ‘Man, I just don’t feel like this is the type of situation that I would want going into an engagement.
Lydia told E! News that she was “shocked” when she learned that Uche and Lydia dated before Love Is Blind Season 5. “I was very shocked. I just felt it was super hard for me to process everything. I had fallen in love so fast. I was all in, and there’s a lot of room to be like, ‘Man, I don’t know about this.’ But it wasn’t just the reveal of their past, it was conversations that I had had with Uche,” she said. “Like any other dating situation, you learn things about them and people put their best feet forward in the beginning, and then the flaws start to come to the surface on both sides, and you’re like, ‘I don’t know about this.’ So that’s where I was, even before the reveal of knowing they had a past.”
Despite everything, Aaliyah told E! News that she didn’t regret her time on Love Is Blind Season 5. “I was super nervous at first, and as I got more used to being in the setting, it was really exhilarating and refreshing to be in there, seeking out love and trying to find a partner in that way was so cool. It’s just different. It’s unique,” she said.
Aaliyah told Us Weekly in September 2023 that she’s now realized that Uche keeping his past with Lydia with a secret was a “red flag.” “I think all of us have a past [and] history going into relationships after a certain point in life,” she said. “We all have things that we’re going to have to work through with a new partner [that’s] not necessarily bringing in a bunch of baggage, but your lessons learned even some traumas and different things that you’re going to have to work through.”
She continued, “I know with marriage, you’re navigating a lot. You’re going to have to compromise and work through things. I was open to [discussing the hard truths].” Aaliyah also explained why she left Love Is Blind Season 5 early. “It was really just the emotional security that was really lacking for me going into the engagement,” she said.
Chris Coelen, the executive producer of Love Is Blind Season 5, confirmed to People in September 2023 that the producers of the show didn’t know Uche and Lydia were exes until filming started. “we do a very thorough vetting process across all kinds of criteria. We really go to some great lengths, and to the best of our ability, we try to ensure that the pool of people in the pods don’t know each other. Obviously, we’re not infallible, and this one happened. However it happened, it happened, and we had to deal with the ramifications of it,” he said.
He continued, “We had absolutely no idea. The intention is that we have a pool of people that don’t know each other, We have had a few instances in the past with people on the same side, like it’s two women who know each other a little bit, but we haven’t had people, to my knowledge, on the other side of the pod that knew each other, and we’ve never had, to my knowledge, people who have had a relationship in the past. It’s just mind-blowing that that was the case, and truly shocking on day one that that information was delivered to me.”
Coelen also explained what happened behind-the-scenes when Uche and Lydia learned that they were both on Love Is Blind Season 5. “I was sitting in the control room on day one of dating. I think we have 89 cameras in the pods and there’s lots of stuff happening,” he said. “We have a big team of hundreds of crew members, and there’s always somebody listening to something. Whoever was listening in to Uche and Lydia’s conversation, as soon as that date was coming to an end, they came over and said, ‘These two people know each other. They had this relationship [previously].’”
He continued, “We immediately stopped them, pulled them aside, prevented them from going back into the mix in the pods, and brought them to separate interview rooms. We said to them first, ‘I don’t know how this happened, this is awful. I know you’ve planned to be here and you’ve gone through this whole process, and now you know each other. I don’t know how we can continue with you in this experiment, and I know that sucks.’”
Coelen also confirmed that Uche and Lydia both told producers that they didn’t want to get back together after finding out they were both in The Pods.. “They’re like, ‘You mean you’re going to send us home?’ We said, ‘I don’t know how you can continue,’ and they’re like, ‘We want to continue,’” he said. “Again, these are separate conversations, but basically, they’re saying the same thing: ‘We want to continue and we want to be here, and we’re really serious.’ Each of them said, ‘We have no interest in dating the other one.’ Both of them spoke very glowingly of the other. Both of them said, ‘It was kind of on-and-off but no interest moving forward. We really want to find somebody that’s committed to this.’”
He continued, “So we said, ‘If we were to allow you to continue being part of this experiment, knowing that you are really passionate about being here, we will allow you to continue under one condition.’ We never police what anybody says, but in this case, it was the only time where we’ve said, ‘We would like if you would not reveal this to the others.’”
2. Who’s Uche from Love Is Blind Season 5?
Who is Uche from Love Is Blind Season 5? Uche Okoroha is a 34-year-old lawyer and entrepreneur from the Houston, Texas, area. His Instagram handle is @imabovethelaw. “Nearly 2 years ago I was asked to be on Netflix’s “reality TV” show @loveisblindnetflix – It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, but I’m glad I’ll be able to share the story soon! If you want to follow along, it premieres September 22,” he captioned an Instagram post in September 2023 announcing he was on Love Is Blind Season 5.
Read Uche’s official Love Is Blind Season 5 biography from Netflix’s website ahead: “As a lawyer, Uche is used to letting his analytical mindset take over, but in the pods he knows that he’ll have to lead with his heart. After being single for two years, he’s ready to switch up his dating habits, especially when it comes to putting an emphasis on physical appearance. Instead, Uche is looking to connect with an ambitious woman with a good sense of humor who’ll join him to create an ‘us against the world’ way of life.”
3. Who’s Lydia from Love Is Blind Season 5?
Who is Lydia from Love Is Blind Season 5? Lydia Arlene Velez Gonzalez is a 32-year-old geologist from the Houston, Texas, area. Her Instagram handle is @lavg. “I am finally able to share I am part of Season 5!! @loveisblindnetflix !! Come and join me to watch September 22! Only on @netflix !! #loveisblindseason5 #love #boricua #puertorico🇵🇷 #PRindahouse,” she captioned an Instagram post in September 2023 announcing she was on Love Is Blind Season 5.
Read Lydia’s official Love Is Blind Season 5 biography from Netflix’s website ahead: “As a geologist, the only rock Lydia isn’t familiar with is the one she wants on her finger. After turning 30, Lydia is now “emotionally mature enough to be married” and wants to find a tall, dark, and handsome guy with a big personality who feels the same way. But, fair warning: She has zero patience for men who can’t communicate, as the key to her heart is ‘transparency and emotional maturity.’ Lydia hopes to take a step closer to her happily ever after by locking down a forever kind of love ‘not based on looks,’ but on a commitment to overcoming any obstacle together. “
4. Who’s Aaliyah from Love Is Blind Season 5?
Who’s Aaliyah from Love Is Blind Season 5? Aaliyah is a 29-year-old ICU travel nurse from the Houston, Texas, area. “I’m happy to finally be able to share @loveisblindnetflix opened the pods up to ya girl! Follow my journey on Season 5 of Love Is Blind only on Netflix 🤎 First episodes air Friday, September 22 🥰 Enjoyyyyyyyyy! ✨ #loveisblindnetflix #loveisblindseason5,” she captioned an Instagram post in September 2023 announcing she was on Love Is Blind Season 5.
Read Aaliyah’s official Love Is Blind Season 5 biography from Netflix’s website ahead: “Aaliyah flies all around the country for work, but when it comes to love, she’s always missing her connection. She’s been living the single life for more than a year and keeps meeting men who ‘aren’t truly ready to commit’ or lack ‘honesty, loyalty, and consistency.’ Aaliyah’s dream guy is an intellectual foodie who can feed her stomach and her mind. If she can stop overthinking, the ‘pure and gentle’ relationship she’s seeking could be right around the corner — or through a glowing blue wall.”
Love Is Blind Season 5 is available to stream on Netflix.
Our mission at StyleCaster is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
Best of StyleCaster
