JP Pierce has a new love in his life after his broken engagement with Taylor Rue, according to Love Is Blind costar Izzy Zapata.
“He’s a really good guy, like, I got to hang out with him one-on-one. I believe he’s been seeing a girl for a year now, so obviously he’s doing something right,” Izzy, 32, said during his Thursday, October 5, appearance on the “Viall Files” podcast. “I think sometimes a lot of guys are not very in [touch] with their emotions or can’t express them very well and I think that was just the case with him.”
JP, 32, sparked an instant connection with Taylor, 26, in the Love Is Blind season 5 pods. The duo — affectionately nicknamed “sugar” and “sugar butt” — went on to get engaged, sight unseen, before ever leaving the pods. However, their communication faltered when they came face to face. JP even criticized Taylor’s full makeup look, upset she didn’t go fresh-faced. “It felt like you were fake,” he said in an episode of Love Is Blind.
“I did talk to him in Mexico, and he was like, ‘Taylor’s beautiful. I love the way she looks without her makeup. She has such natural beauty,’” Izzy told host Nick Viall of the firefighter. “Obviously, the way he worded it to her was completely horrible [and] he should have just said it that way.”
Izzy continued: “He comes from a good spot. He has a good heart. I think he just needs to work on [the] presentation of how he delivers things, and I think that’s kind of a trend of season 5. Our deliveries are poor.”
Taylor, for her part, told Us Weekly that she sensed a disconnect during their post-proposal reveal but “didn’t really dig too deep” until their Mexico trip — and his comments about her physical appearance.
“I was really hurt and I was also confused,” she exclusively told Us ahead of the season 5 premiere. “I was like, ‘There’s just no way that our relationship is basically ending because of the way I look.’ Because we had built such a strong connection between us and I was like, ‘This is my husband. We’re engaged.’”
Taylor further pressed that she “would never end” a romance based on another person’s opinion. “I left because the version of JP that I fell in love with was no longer there and that was scary to me,” she explained. “I was supposed to go home and live with this person and I felt like I didn’t even know him in Mexico. So, I thought long and hard because part of me wanted to stay and part of me was like, ‘I’m done. I’m going home.’”
JP has not publicly addressed the pair’s breakup or his newfound relationship, but Izzy did also weigh in on his costar only wearing patriotic outfits.
“I think some of the guys did [ask why],” Izzy quipped on Thursday. “I don’t think I ever saw him one time over there without something [featuring an] American flag or red, white and blue. He just loves America, yeah. He [was] like, ‘America, f—k yeah!’ he’d always say.”
