She found her match! Love Is Blind‘s Shaina Hurley introduced fans to boyfriend Chris Lardakis after calling off her engagement to Kyle Abrams.
The Netflix star, 32, made her romance Instagram official on Sunday, March 13, after teasing her relationship status earlier this month. “My ride or die forever ♾ ❤️🔥 ✞,” she captioned a carousel of photos and videos from a vacation to Mykonos.
In one pic, Shaina’s beau is seen shirtless as she leans into his side while they pose in front of a mirror. Another snap shows the reality TV personality resting her head on Chris’ shoulder and holding his hand.
Fans met the Chicago-based hairstylist during season 2 of Netflix’s dating series, which premiered last month. Shaina got engaged to Kyle, 29, in the pods despite their opposing religious beliefs — but she also had a strong connection with Shayne Jansen. After accepting Kyle’s proposal, she confessed her feelings to Shayne, 32, as he prepared to ask Natalie Lee to marry him.
During the heated season 2 reunion, which hit Netflix on March 4, Shaina said she felt “manipulated” by Kyle’s proposal because he used his mother’s engagement ring. “It was a people-pleasing moment and I should have never said yes to you. I should have never said yes,” she explained.
The former fiancés broke up in Mexico after leaving the pods. While reflecting on her experience on the show, Shaina said on the “Viall Files” podcast that she had a “gut” feeling she wouldn’t be walking down the aisle with the contractor.
“Because even before he proposed, I was like, ‘I don’t know how it’s gonna work.’ … I was trying to be open-minded because this is an experiment,” she recalled during the March 2 episode. “This was, like, 10 days — people are acting like this was years. … During the reveal, I had [the] intention, [then] I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t know if we should be doing this.’ And when I saw him, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is real.'”
Shaina went on to tell host Nick Viall that she didn’t ditch Kyle with no explanation, even though their goodbye conversation wasn’t aired. “I was very honest with Kyle and I had told them like, ‘I can’t do this,'” she continued. “I broke up with him for a reason. And I had explained that to him in Mexico, and I wanted to go home. I was kind of over it at that point. And I just needed to see my family again, like, we weren’t able to see them for about three weeks, so I had no outside influence.”
As the aftermath of her split continues to drum up drama, Shaina gushed over her “pretty serious” boyfriend, adding, “He’s been great throughout the whole situation. I’m happy.”
Kyle, for his part, has sparked rumors that he’s giving his relationship with fellow season 2 star Deepti Vempati after she walked away from Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee on their wedding day. The 33-year-old vet was at the center of attention during the dramatic reunion special, where he seemingly gave Kyle his blessing to pursue his ex.
Hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey recently opened up about filming the tense reunion, exclusively telling Us Weekly there was “no way to predict” what would go down. “I knew there were certainly some things that people felt like they wanted to get some closure on, and I think that those were accomplished for the most part,” the boybander, 48, explained on Saturday, March 12.
The CSI: Hawaii star, 41, said that the special captured the “beauty of the show” — and hinted that plenty of drama was left on the cutting room floor. “Hopefully, people can watch it and learn from it, and hopefully, people can watch it and be intrigued by it,” Vanessa told Us. “I think ultimately when Nick and I wanted to [host the show] … we [wanted] people to start talking about seeing love in its true form, which is having an emotional foundation.”
Scroll down to see more glimpses of Shaina’s post-Love Is Blind romance:
