Love Is Blind’s Lydia Says the ‘Ship Has Sailed’ on a ‘Great Friendship’ with Aaliyah

Lydia Velez Gonzalez has no bad blood when it comes to her Love Is Blind costar Aaliyah Cosby — but unfortunately their close friendship is no longer.

Early in season 5, fans learned that Lydia, 32, previously dated costar Uche Okoroha prior to the show. The revelation was particularly shocking to Aaliyah, who had been connecting with Uche in the pods and also forming a close friendship with Lydia in the women’s quarters.

Later, it was finally revealed that Aaliyah, 29, left the experiment right before Uche, 34, was going to propose because she had enough of Lydia’s commentary about Uche. The two also had a major falling out off camera that ultimately made Aaliyah reach her breaking point.

Addressing their friendship today, Lydia tells PEOPLE that the two were never able to find their way back to a close bond after everything that unfolded.

“That, unfortunately I think, that ship has sailed — our friendship,” she explains. “There’s a lot of hurt there. As you guys all witnessed, she formed her own conclusions even before giving me the chance to really experience myself after the cameras were gone.”

She continues, “I respect her choice. I don’t judge her by it and I have never [spoken poorly] about her, and I cannot say the same for her about me. So I wish her the best. She seems to be thriving. We are not friends anymore.”

Lydia is choosing to focus on what they did share in the time they were friends.

“I’m going to stick to the positives and the greatest thing that we did form is a bond, the bond that we formed really early on, the pods before we were even dating anybody,” she says. “We had a really great friendship. And I’m going to stick with those moments. And everything that happened after is unfortunate, is really sad. I think she’s a great girl and … I’m happy for her.”

Though Aaliyah left the show after that confrontation with Lydia, she later returned for a lunch with Uche. During this gathering, Aaliyah was ready to give things a second try, but Uche rejected the offer, citing his frustrations with Aaliyah’s inconsistencies and up-and-down behavior after the experiment.

“You didn’t have confidence in me and you didn’t have confidence in our relationship,” he said in episode 7. “I think it’s over between us.”

Uche has since claimed on the Miss Understood podcast that they did try to make their relationship work off camera after that scene, but things ultimately didn’t pan out.

“To clarify, I did continue a relationship with her,” he told host Rachel Uchitel. “I know they edited the scene and they put in a sound bite to make it sound like I dumped her, but that’s not what happened.”

Uche also claimed that the producers of the Netflix series asked if they would like to return to the show after their reunion, but they both said no. “I think because we refused to come back to the show as an engaged couple, they decided to change what happened,” he claimed. (PEOPLE has reached out to reps for Love Is Blind regarding these claims.)

During that same lunch date, Aaliyah admitted to Uche that she was “questioning” whether he and Lydia had “planned to be here together,” as there was much speculation regarding this issue. Though Uche denied it at the time, Aaliyah previously told PEOPLE that she wasn’t sure if his response was genuine.

“At this point, I am really unsure on a lot, but I just hope that they both are in a better place because I feel like there’s a lot that they had experienced prior to the show that just didn’t really have much to do with me,” she said of Uche and Lydia. “I think that’s for them to kind of share with people if they choose to. But I feel at peace with it now.”

“For a while it was kind of difficult for me to navigate my feelings, but I’m not really sure,” she added. “I don’t know. Maybe they can kind of speak to it more and then we can all get our closure together on that and get our answers together.”

Despite Lydia’s claims that they are no longer friends, Aaliyah insisted that she’s on good terms with both Uche and Lydia. But most of all, she’s focused on moving forward.

“I am in a good place. I respect them both as people,” she said. “I think that we all want one another to be happy, and I am most definitely living my best life. I’m happy.”