Laughing about it! 90 Day Fiancé star Jovi Dufren is not bothered by Yara Zaya’s previous engagement despite his family’s surprise about it.
“Yeah, I was aware of the fact that she was engaged before. Basically runaway bride over here. Runaway right before she was supposed to get married,” Jovi exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, January 14. “So I knew that, but I felt like we had a connection and I wasn’t really worried.”
In Us‘ exclusive sneak peek of the Sunday, January 17, episode of the TLC reality series, Yara shares the revelation but downplays the situation to Jovi’s mother. “I mean, not engaged like ‘engaged.’ Just, like, proposed to me. But I didn’t, like … [I accepted] just a ring,” she explains.
“I was engaged. Guy proposed [to] me. I was thinking that maybe, but then I changed my mind,” the Ukraine native says in a confessional interview. “It’s happened, it’s life — that’s it.”
Yara then details the timeline of her engagements to Jovi’s mom. “I get the ring and that was the time and after four months, I [met] Jovi,” she notes.
His mother is in shock and wants answers after the bombshell. “I’m guessing Jovi knows. I don’t even know if Jovi knows or not,” she tells the cameras. “Makes me a little curious as to what happened, why it ended.”
Despite the hesitation from Jovi’s loved ones about Yara’s past, they have since moved on from the issue. “My relationship with Jovi’s family, it’s good,” she told Us on Thursday. “Jovi’s family, from my opinion, they’re wonderful. They’re so nice. Jovi’s mama, she’s so good. She’s a sensitive person, but it seems now I can hang out with her. I love Jovi’s family. I think he [is] really blessed that he has such a cool family.”
Jovi agreed that his family has welcomed Yara. “For me, I’m happy to just see, like, the fact that … things didn’t go great in the beginning, we had a little bit of confusion. Not really conflict but just things that everybody wasn’t on the same page with,” he said. “And to see that everybody was able to overcome these things and actually get along and accept Yara into their life, it was important for me.”
Yara realizes why they were cautious at first. “Well, of course I understand,” she told Us. “And people watching [a] movie, you have some stereotype about the woman from Ukraine and I understand where they come from. I understand probably if I will be from this country and my son will get married [to a woman from Ukraine], I will be freaking worried too.”
90 Day Fiancé airs on TLC Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
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