Love is Blind UK star Nicole Stevens has slammed her ex-fiancé Sam Klein for claiming she wanted to sleep with him, but he rejected her.
Nicole, 30, initially agreed to marry product designer Sam, 32, after they formed a connection while dating sight unseen in the pods on the Netflix reality dating series.
However, after they met in person and spent time together, Nicole ended their relationship and went on to marry structural landscaper Benaiah Grunewald Brydie, 33.
However, when tuning into the show, many viewers took issue with several things Sam said and did, including expressing concerns about being able to ‘pick up Nicole’, how he responded to rejection and how he later commented on Nicole’s ‘boring brown eyes’.
After proposing in person, he then told her: ‘I think I love you.’
The show’s reunion episode was released last night, which showed Sam being called out for his behaviour and told to apologise to his ex, who has now spoken about how he ‘disrespected’ her.
‘No woman wants their private relationship to be exposed like that,’ she said.
‘At the time I thought I was trying to take the high road when it came to the intimate details of our relationship, nonetheless what he said wasn’t true.
‘So, we need to address that because it was false information he said to Ben and in my opinion, it was really, really quite poor form.’
Speaking to MailOnline, Nicole also said that what viewers saw was only ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
‘From everything I have seen on screen and off camera, Sam disrespected me, and he disrespected my husband, and that’s all I’ll say,’ she added.
Reflecting on her relationship with Sam, Nicole said she wanted to give him ‘the benefit of the doubt’ despite being concerned about ‘red flags’.
She also said that when she first met Sam in person, she ‘wasn’t excited’.
Meanwhile her husband said he felt he ‘had to call Sam out’, adding he can ‘see through people pretty quickly and didn’t believe Sam was on the show for ‘pure reasons’.
Many viewers also suggested they believed Sam had only signed up for his ’15 minutes of fame’.
However, when appearing on the reunion episode, which was released tonight, Sam spoke about the backlash he’d received.
As host Matt Willis explained when introducing him to the stage: ‘It’s fair to say you’ve provoked a very strong reaction from the public.’
After being asked how the last few weeks had been, he responded: ‘Look, it’s not been easy. I have to be real. I went to do a show to try and find the future wife of my life and the last few weeks of my life have not been great and there’s been quite a lot of backlashes and it’s been hard to handle.
‘But I would say it’s made me a lot stronger and that I’ve learnt a lot about myself and that I can handle anything now.
‘I thought I was ready for love but maybe I wasn’t at the time.’
Host Emma Willis then asked one of Sam’s previous love interests, Jasmine, about how she’d questioned Sam’s intentions during their time in the pods, which she said was based on ‘women’s intuition’.
‘It just did not feel right for me,’ she said.
After being asked about his comment about not being able to pick up Nicole, he said: ‘I get nervous. I am just a human and I get nervous and say things. I genuinely didn’t mean any harm by it. I know I am not a bad person. It was honestly just nervousness.’
Nicole went on to thank her husband Benaiah for ‘having her back’ after he warned her about his concerns about Sam before the pod proposals.
The hosts asked for clarification on who called their proposal off, with Nicole saying she had made the decision, adding Sam ‘did not take that very well’.
Sam however came under fire for telling Beniah at the mixer that Nicole had wanted to ‘sleep with him’ before they broke up, with Demi then speaking up and begging him to take accountability and apologise to Nicole.
‘That was really hurtful…and a lie,’ Nicole said.
Those watching on at home were also less than impressed.
‘A whole year has gone by, and Sam didn’t prepare or know that he should have apologised to Nicole with immediate effect. EMBARRASSING,’ Clementine posted on X.
‘They need to stop giving Sam airtime, it’s enough,’ user _ Chxrie_ shared.
‘DEMI just gave me life calling out Sam like that. Thank God. She a real one,’ Zee added.
However, before saying farewell to Sam, Emma said it was easy for viewers to have strong opinions on what they saw on screen and forget these are ‘real people’s lives’ and how there was an ‘immense amount of pressure’.
‘I hope you can heal,’ she told him.
Ahead of the reunion, Sam also said the ‘editing’ of the show didn’t paint him in a positive light.
‘The show was intense and high-pressure, and the editing hasn’t really worked in my favour,’ he shared on Instagram.
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Love is Blind is streaming on Netflix.
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