The Shady Side Of 90 Day Fiance Stars

The following article includes allegations of domestic abuse and sexual assault. 

There is no other show quite like TLC's 90 Day Fiancé. With eight seasons under its belt and multiple spinoffs, the show has given viewers an inside look at both the successful and sadly, disastrous journeys of American citizens and their foreign fiancés, who have all but 90 days to say their "I do's" or risk getting sent back to their country. While it seems like nothing can come in between two people who are in love, several factors have challenged these couples. As viewers of the series know, cultural barriers, family drama and past revelations stir up a lot of controversy for some of these reality star couples.

The binge-worthy show's audience only sees a piece of the story, but faithful fans have dug up loads of information about these couples. From criminal records to marriage fraud, many of these reality stars have a shady side that has been exposed onscreen and off. Here are some of the 90 Day Fiancé stars who have been at the center of serious situations.

Viewers met Danielle Mullins and her Tunisian fiancé Mohamed Jbali on season two of 90 Day Fiancé, then again on 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After in 2016 and 2017. Their relationship was doubtful from the very beginning with Jbali refusing to get intimate with Mullins because of his religious upbringing, and Mullins' children questioning Jbali's intentions. During the show's reunion, Jbali revealed his true colors when he not only admitted that he had never been attracted to Mullins, but claimed she peed on him and had hygiene problems. When Jblai left Mullins to go to Miami, reports surfaced that suggested he only wanted a green card. 

Angered at Jbali and his actions, fans even started a petition on Change.org to get Jbali out of the country because he "clearly used an American woman 'Danielle Mullins' to gain citizenship to the United States." However, Mullins said on the show (via E! News) that Jbali "begged" her to file a divorce so he could remain in the U.S., instead of filing for an annulment, which would likely have him deported. Since the series, Mullins sued her ex-husband for fraud for $12,500 in September 2017, according to Radar Online. The reality star claimed that she paid for the K-1 visa, the wedding, and the divorce, and apparently, Jbali had promised to pay her back but never did, per Cosmopolitan.

Larissa Dos Santos Lima's marriage to Las Vegas native Colt Johnson was brief, but as 90 Day Fiancé fans dug deeper into their private lives, several things came to light regarding why the couple divorced, including Lima's multiple arrests. According to documents obtained by Starcasm, Lima was arrested twice in 2018 for domestic violence against Johnson, with the first arrest in June, "just five days before the couple's wedding." However, both of those cases were later dropped, as Heavy reported. Lima was arrested for the third time in 2019 and was accused of attacking her husband, with E! News obtaining documents that indicated that Lima "did willfully and unlawfully use force or violence against or upon the person of her spouse." Soap Dirt reported that a judge made a deal with Lima and her charges went down to "disorderly conduct once she completed community service and DV offender classes."

After seven months of marriage, Johnson filed for divorce following the third incident. Lima's attorney told E! News that the aforementioned deal would "not impede her ability to obtain citizenship."

Lima moved on to an on-again, off-again relationship with Eric Nichols. In September 2019, The Blast reported she filed a police report against Nichols for harassment. In a statement to Us Weekly, Nichols denied the allegations. A few months later, Lima shared on Instagram that they got back together (via In Touch). As Screen Rant pointed out, the pair's relationship is currently up in the air.

Anfisa Arkhipchenko and Jorge Nava's marriage on 90 Day Fiancé was hard to watch. It was clear that Nava had lied about his wealth to the Russian native, who unlike the other foreign stars on the show, was not hiding that fact that she wanted to marry a rich American man. It got ugly from there when fans witnessed Arkhipchenko attacking Nava, and Nava admitted that he was in debt, and their marriage was put to the test when Nava was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for "attempt to commit marijuana violation," as E! News reported. The pair announced their divorce shortly after Nava's early release in May 2020, and have since moved on, according to TMZ. 

Even though fans were left with a bad impression of Arkhipchenko, she cleared the air when she uploaded a video on her YouTube channel, spilling details about married life with Nava. As she looked back on an episode where Nava tells Arkhipchenko he could potentially lose $15,000 if he missed his client's call, but she keeps calling, the model revealed that she was "trying to protect him from doing something illegal." She also claimed that Nava "could have went to prison way earlier if I was not, you know, trying to talk some sense into him." Suffice to say, there were some shady things going on.

Several factors contributed to the breakup of Ed Brown, aka Big Ed, and his Philippines-born fiancée, Rosemarie Vega, on 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days. From talking about her personal hygiene to asking her to take an STD test and later admitting that he never wanted kids, Vega would go on to call Big Ed a "liar" (via ET) and their relationship would never be repaired. Big Ed faced a ton of backlash for his treatment of Vega, and he would deal with a lot more serious issues than lying when a TikTok user accused him of sexual assault. 

Long before he appeared on the reality show, a woman named Lorelei Clemens, who goes by @lordakeet on TikTok, released a video (via YouTube) with text that read, "I would like to introduce you to the man who sexually harassed and assaulted me." Her comments were followed by images of Big Ed on the show. Daily Soap Dish interviewed Clemens who claimed she was being "manipulated" by the reality star and she still has health issues to this day from the assault. Big Ed has not responded to the sexual assault claims, and Clemens cannot offer any more details about what happened because she had signed a non-disclosure agreement that restrains her, as she stated in her interview. 

Fans watched the odd pairing that was Jason Hitch and his Brazilian fiancée, Cassia Tavares, struggle in their marriage after they tied the knot in Las Vegas during the second season of 90 Day Fiancé. Once in America, Cassia saw that Jason lived an extremely frugal lifestyle, while Jason was questioning his wife's true intentions. Sadly, their marriage didn't last long, and the two separated in 2017, after Hitch was arrested, according to Radar Online. 

According to a report obtained by Radar Online, Tavares accused her husband of grabbing her and pushing her to the ground, which prompted her to call 911. Hitch refused to fill out a written statement with what he stated happened, and so, he was arrested for domestic battery. Seemingly not taking the seriousness of his actions or his arrest into account, when a Twitter user shared a photo of his mugshot, Starcasm reported Hitch replied, "that's not a very charming mugshot! I knew I should have smiled." According to Radar Online, Tavares dropped the charges.

Hitch and Tavares ended up filing for divorce in 2018, with Hitch telling Starcasm, "I tried everything last year to save whatever we thought we had." Tavares also had a few words to say about her marriage to Hitch, and in a lengthy statement shared that he "was a good man sometimes" before adding that she "found him to be very violent with his words, a controller and (as many of you know) an abuser." 

90 Day Fiancé had its first same-sex couple when Stephanie Matto and Australian Erika Owens appeared on its spinoff 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days in 2020. While fans applauded the series for showcasing diversity, there were some viewers who doubted Matto's sexuality and believed she was "pretending to be bisexual for her career," as Women's Republic wrote.

Throughout their time on the show, fans witnessed the lack of intimacy between Matto and Owens, with several fans accusing the Yonkers native for not being genuine about her sexuality. Women's Republic noted that because Matto is an influencer and YouTuber, there were some who suspected she only created a relationship with Owens to "gain more fans, popularity, and notoriety." Matto and Ownes' love story came to an end, and the two split, and Matto never came out to her mother as bisexual until she had already broken up with the Aussie, as CheatSheet stated. Matto eventually opened up about her sexual orientation when she shared an Instagram post that read, "I don't think I can make any definitive statements about anything. That being said, I am still bisexual, biromantic, whatever you want to call it." However, Owens revealed to ET that the pair didn't spent much time together after the show, stating, "Honestly, we didn't even sleep in the same room or even the same hotel room more than four nights."

Tim Clarkson and his Colombian girlfriend Melyza Zeta were introduced on 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way. On the series, the Iowa resident packed all his belongings and moved to Colombia after fans found out that he had cheated on Zeta. Many fans thought their relationship was quite "boring" because it only focused on Clarkson trying to prove to Zeta that he'll be a better man, and Zeta showing no emotion while Clarkson constantly cried in every single episode. 

Clarkson would not only disclose that he has cheated on his girlfriend, but he had a sketchy background that involved him having a criminal record. On the show, he admitted that he had been arrested for breaking and entering vehicles and spent almost a month in jail when he was 24 (via Daily Soap Dish), but In Touch revealed that he was first arrested for a DUI in 2015. Clarkson had a BAC greater than .08 and was taken into custody in Iowa. Clarkson ended up pleading guilty in the case. 

According to Daily Soap Dish, his criminal past is alarming to fans and they believe Zeta could find a better man. In November 2020, In Touch noted that following Clarkson's return to the U.S., Zeta uploaded a photo of herself with a huge smile on her face, writing, "Plays "Happier" in the background."

Baltimore-based piano renter Mark Shoemaker and his fiancée, Philippines-born Nikki Shoemaker, had a relationship that made 90 Day Fiancé viewers cringe. Not only did the pair have a 39-year age difference, the father of four revealed that he had an ex-wife that was from the same city in the Philippines as Nikki. What's more, she would soon find when arriving to America that he still had a photo of his former wife on his bedside. But, that wasn't all! Fans couldn't help but notice how Shoemaker treated Nikki like a child after telling her to not touch his car windows, demanded she sign a prenup, and gifted her with the same exact car he had also bought his ex. 

At the end, his fiancée would say "I do" during their beach wedding and fans would never see the couple appear on any spinoffs. After the show, Mark sued Discovery Communications for how they had portrayed him, but a judge tossed out the claims since the couple signed a contract with the network that allowed them to edit their life as producers pleased, as Starcasm reported. However, Starcasm learned that Mark apparently isn't a "stranger to instigating litigation" and has filed several lawsuits "over the past twenty years." 

Fans were introduced to Emily Larina and Alexander "Sasha" Larin on Season 7 of 90 Day Fiancé, and said fans were shocked to learn that the Russian native would be marrying his third wife and would be welcoming his third son. Having one child with each of his ex-wives, and one on the way with his American fiancé was alarming to viewers and his first wife would even share on the show that Larin "got bored" with her and left her for his second wife, only to do the same thing to his second wife with Larina, as ScreenRant reported. Learning about Larin's "pattern" of leaving his wives was especially concerning to Larina's sister, Betsy. 

Betsy welcomed her sister and her fiancé into her home when they arrived from Russia with their newborn son. However, viewers watched as Larin body-shamed Betsy and she grew increasingly concerned for her sister, wondering if Larin was there for the right reasons. According to Larin (via ET), he and Betsy are "getting along better" since they no longer live together. He also spoke about his ex-wife's accusations on the show, sharing, "Maybe I wasn't such a great husband or father ... it's been around 10 years since we've been in a relationship and after this, she doesn't know anything about me."

90 Day Fiancé Season 5's Evelyn Cormier and David Vazquez have a pretty large age gap, with the Spaniard being nine years older than his American wife. During filming, Cormier was only 18 years old when she married Vazquez, but a Reddit user (via Starcasm) suggested that Vazquez apparently started communicating with his now-wife when she was 15 or 16 years old.

Alleged screengrabs of Cormier's Instagram account show Vazquez commenting on a modeling shoot in 2014—at that time, she was just around 15 years old and Vazquez was 24. In Touch also shared that the two apparently continued to interact on the social media platform, with Cormier even asking him to visit her in America in 2014. However, after reports of these back-and-forths surfaced, the reality stars apparently cleaned their Instagram accounts of any old posts that show the two interacting, according to In Touch. The couple is still married, but the allegations made on Reddit were disturbing to many viewers. 

If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit RAINN.org for additional resources.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224. You can also find more information, resources, and support at www.thehotline.org.