Of all the awkward moments that have unfolded so far in this season of Love Is Blind, Taylor Rue and Jared “JP” Pierce’s conversations — or lack thereof — have arguably been the most difficult to sit through.
As viewers will know, things started off great for Taylor and JP, with the pair immediately hitting things off in the pods and becoming the first couple to get engaged. Just before the big physical reveal, JP said, “I know she’s gonna be the most beautiful girl, because I like her for what’s on the inside.”
And once the pair met, JP immediately said that Taylor was “really pretty” and described himself as the “luckiest man in the world.” After she asked for reassurance that he found her attractive, he said again, “I like the way you look.”
However, things took a drastic turn after the pair went away to Mexico on their couples' retreat.
JP got noticeably quiet and awkward around Taylor, to the point where she quite literally had to tell him to speak to her. She eventually sat him down and outright asked why he was acting so strange, and he claimed his communication had been different because he was put off by the makeup she was wearing during the big reveal.
“I understand that you tried to present yourself and look as best as you could, but I feel like if you were able to present yourself like this, without any makeup, it would’ve been better,” JP told her.
Taylor appeared visibly confused and asked, “So the way I looked made you communicate differently?” In response, JP said, “It felt like you were fake... You had a caked-up face, fake eyelashes. I’m being honest, and I’m sorry that’s so hard to hear.”
JP later proceeded to tell Taylor again that she’d “presented fake stuff” by wearing “a lot of makeup” when they first met, adding that it got “all over” his jacket.
Taylor ultimately decided to end things with JP, calling off their engagement and explaining that things felt “uncomfortable” and “forced” between them.
Now opening up about her experience in detail, Taylor admitted that she found the entire thing “heartbreaking” during a new chat with E! News.
Noting that her and JP’s dynamic was “probably worse” in real life than it looked onscreen, Taylor said, “It was really hard. I mean just the reveal was a little bit awkward, but in my mind, I was like, ‘He’s probably nervous, I’m nervous,’ and in a way, we were having to start over because we just had the emotional connection.”
“Then in Mexico, I mean, it didn’t get any better,” she went on. “I brought a conversation up to hopefully fix it, and I think it only got worse because I brought it up. But that wasn’t my hope — my hope was to fix it and fix our relationship.”
Then discussing the now-infamous makeup chat she and JP had, Taylor admitted that she was left super “hurt” by his comments, and didn’t feel like there was “a lot of truth” behind them.
“I think when he initially said it, I was like, What in the world? There is no way that you are acting completely differently because of the way I look,” she said.
“We're on here for an emotional connection, and we had built such a strong connection between us,” she continued.
“To me I don’t feel like there’s a lot of truth behind that, but I was definitely hurt about it,” Taylor added, before clarifying that in spite of how much it upset her, she did not end things with JP because of his “makeup comment.”
Instead, she said, “I left JP because I fell in love with this version of him, and then that version was no longer there.”
As for where she and JP stand today, Taylor revealed that the pair have “talked” since appearing on the show.
“We haven’t met up or anything, but he reached out to me, and I just wasn’t ready. I was like, 'I don’t wanna talk to you, I don’t wanna see you, I need to heal,'” she shared.
