Lana doesn’t see everything! After a rough start on the forced celibacy retreat that was Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle, Joey Joy and Carly Lawrence’s on-screen connection and relationship has improved with time — and gotten hotter.
“We are very much together,” Carly, 24, exclusively told Us Weekly, while hugging Joey, 23, in a joint virtual interview. “We live together. … Joey, I’m obviously in love with, I love him.”
While the duo did briefly break up after filming wrapped, they’ve since gotten back together and relocated to Los Angeles, where they are in the process of launching a joint YouTube channel.
“Things are good now,” she added. “We’re, like, learning how to date each other. So, that’s good.”
Though Joey came onto the show late during the sixth episode, the pair gushed about their instantaneous, jaw-dropping connection.
“I think we probably would have been together from the beginning [if I were there then],” Joey said. “I mean, I’m speaking for myself because I didn’t really have eyes for anyone else.”
Carly chimed in, “As soon as he came in, you can see me on camera [she makes a shocked face]. He’s my little dork.”
By the end of the second season, three finalists were in the running for the prize money: Cam Holmes, Marvin Anthony and Carly. Joey, despite his romantic interest in the Canadian native, voted for the Frenchman to take home the monetary prize.
“I was trying to be as non-biased as possible,” he told Us. “I knew everyone had their reasons, like, I think everyone’s starting with who they were coupled up with, and I was just trying to be unbiased as possible. I truly thought Marvin had the most growth [when] I got there and he and Melinda [Melrose] broke the biggest rule, lost 20 grand. They were going through rough patches. … I don’t know how real any of it was, but, to me, I thought that looked the realist and Marvin was one of the people I was like the coolest with on the show.”
There are no hard feelings for Carly knowing that her boyfriend voted for someone else to win because “Marvin obviously had growth” and she “didn’t care about the money.”
After the final votes were tallied and the cameras stopped rolling on the last night, the pair dished that everyone hooked up all over the retreat. With the bedroom, private suite and bathroom occupied, Joey and Carly opted for the tiled floor of the therapist’s room.
“We didn’t want to do anything on camera just because both of our families [were watching],” Carly said. “I didn’t want [our first time] to be in another room with a bunch of people. I still wanted it to be a little bit separate and romantic.”
While they kept things PG during the retreat save for a private hookup post-filming, the couple also revealed just how hot their sex life has gotten since then — and the answer is NSFW.
“We did something crazy yesterday,” Carly said. “… If his mom watches, she’ll kill him [if we explain further details].”
With reporting from Joe Drake
