Zanab Jaffrey Speaks Out After 'Love is Blind' Reunion With Cole Barnett

Love is Blind‘s Zanab Jaffrey is speaking out.

The season three star of the Netflix series spoke with Variety following the reunion episode airing, where she openly told former fiance Cole Barnett what the relationship did to her.

“You have disrespected me. You have insulted me. You have critiqued me. And, for what it is worth, you have single-handedly shattered my self confidence,” she told Cole at the altar during the finale episode.

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Now, in her new interview with Variety, Zanab is looking back more about the signs she skipped over during her relationship with Cole.

Here’s what Zanab said:

On Cole’s quote about Zanab’s name interpreted as he only dates white women: “Everyone heard it. Even watching it back, I was like, wow, I really didn’t hear that like everyone else heard it. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages like what you just said: “He’s saying this.” In the heat of that moment, I didn’t necessarily hear it. But we’d had conversations about women he previously dated. There were many conversations about how to I did not look like it or live up to it.”

On Cole trying to control things, including her eating habits: “I did love him. The things he was saying to me did hurt. I was somehow trying to make myself desirable to him, whether it be skinnier, or…I’ve never had someone speak to me that way about my body or eating. That was very real for me. I did change what I was eating. I was just eating a banana. I did lose weight by the wedding day. It had nothing to do with fitting into my wedding dress.”

On if she’d do the experiment again: “Cole was the only one for me in that experiment. Our reveal, I loved. It was so genuine. I was so happy, and I thought I had met my person. The context of what I was trying to say was that I would do it again and choose him again knowing the outcome. It did send me on a journey. It forced me to dig deeper within myself. I learned so much about myself. Would I repetitively do it again? No. But I don’t regret Cole coming into my life. I don’t ever regret being that happy and in love with him at one point.”

On Cole asking if she was bipolar: “I think it was so uncalled for. I think weaponizing something like mental health, especially with the stigma around mental health — it’s like how you don’t call a woman crazy. I would never use that. There’s one thing I believe in having conversations: fighting clean, never hitting below the belt, not saying something you can’t take back. People take things they hear and run with it. I’ve gotten lots of messages that it’s what I have, or that’s what I am. It’s unfortunate. Now I get hundreds of messages that it’s something I should go checked out for. The internet is a very interesting place.”

Find out which other couples from Love is Blind are still together.

And if you’re wondering if Cole and season one star Matt Barnett are related, here’s the answer.