After getting engaged in the pods, Irina Solomonova and Zack Goytowski called it quits in Mexico and the lawyer later pursued a relationship with Bliss Poureetezadi
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A meeting of the exes: Irina Solomonova came face-to-face with her ex-fiancé Zack Goytowski at Sunday’s Love Is Blind season 4 reunion.
During Sunday’s live reunion special, Zack did not hold back his thoughts on Irina’s behavior throughout the season. “You did a lot of things, um, that hurt a lot of people, including me, and I mean, you only see 10 percent of it on the camera. There was so much stuff that happened that was just unbelievable,” Zack, 32, began.
“If we’re real, you went on this show to get famous. But look, I forgive you. I genuinely, 100 percent forgive you, Irina,” he continued as the audience erupted in cheers. “I really don’t hold anything against you. There’s so many people that want to attack the people, the cast on this show. And you have no idea, like, everybody who made a mistake on this show, it has been punishment enough for the entire world to see them at their worst.”
“Like trust me, Irina, Micah [Lussier], everybody here who did something. We all did something stupid. And so I 100 percent forgive you Irina,” he added. “My last comment, I stand on that. I have receipts. The only receipts I think the world should see are the ones I posted on my Instagram today. And with that said, I really believe Irina that you will become an amazing person one day. I believe that and I forgive you for what happened and I hope the world does too.”
Zack’s now-wife, Bliss Poureetezadi, said: “I do too and we talked. I really don’t hold anything against you.”
Prior to Zack and Bliss’s comments, Irina, 26, addressed the live audience and apologized for her actions. But she got choked up before speaking and said she needed “a minute,” leading some viewers in-person to erupt in laughter.
“I know that’s not the person that I want to be and that I’m not,” Irina said, noting that she was also treating Zack “like s—.” She also blamed her mental health issues for a lot of her on-screen behavior.
Bliss, however, brought up a not-so-kind message Irina sent her way about Zack upon realizing they weren’t a match.
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“You did tell me when you landed in Mexico that I dodged a bullet while you also texted him, ‘I’m so sorry, let’s talk. I hope something happens with you and Bliss,'” Bliss, 33, said. “I think you can have panic attacks and you can have trouble with mental illness and all of that. That’s totally valid. But then you’re turning around and you’re doing malicious things and you’re acting in really cruel ways. It’s hard to reconcile those two things.”
Irina then said in response: “That was completely out of line for me to say. Nothing I did was okay, the way I was acting, the way I was talking.”
After getting engaged in the pods, Irina and Zack broke up in Mexico after an awkward trip between the pair.
“I think we should call it,” Zack told her in season 4’s fifth episode. “I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
Irina agreed. “I feel like I showed up like, really bad for you, too,” she said. “You got the worst part … I’ve never made anyone feel this way. I’m literally treating you so poorly, I know it. Like, I won’t even look at you, touch you. You talk to me and I literally look away. I’m a complete jerk to you and I know that. You don’t deserve that.”
Zack confessed to Irina that he considered breaking up with her on the third day of the trip, and Irina told the lawyer she wanted to leave him “when I first saw you.”
Zack later met up with his other connection from the pods, Bliss, upon returning to Seattle. “Honestly, I was thinking about her the whole time we were together,” the criminal defense attorney previously told Irina.
Irina had also expressed interest in someone else on the show — her Love Is Blind BFF Micah’s fiancé Paul Peden.
“I think you’re really cute. I think you’re exactly my type,” Irina told Paul in Mexico, adding that she found his face “sexy.”
Micah, 27, confronted Irina about her flirtation with Paul when they returned to Seattle.
“You letting me know you were talking about, you know, my fiancé behind my back sucks,” Micah said in episode 6. “It did kind of put me in a really negative headspace. Paul, he said that, ‘Now that you say something, I wasn’t going to say anything, but she was touching me, being all feely in the pool.’ And that was behind my back. And how do you think that makes me feel when like, I was literally your lifeline to all these girls?”
Micah insisted that she “stuck up for” Irina when the business owner “had no one to talk to.”
“I always was like, ‘That’s my bitch. She’s a good person.’ I never left your side,” Micah continued. “Was I the big fool here that missed your red flags or was it just a misunderstanding?”
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Irina owned up to her behavior. “I do admit to doing that. That’s so sneaky,” she told Micah. “Me seeing Paul, honestly, I was way more attracted to him than I was to Zack.”
Micah said she didn’t want “someone I consider a best friend to make me feel doubt” in her relationship, but Irina insisted, “You don’t have to worry about what I feel about Paul.”
Micah, who ultimately rejected Paul at the altar, said she didn’t feel worried. “I could literally give a f—. I know he’s not interested.”
Once the show aired, Irina apologized for her behavior on social media.
“Zack, Bliss, Amber, Jackie, Micah, none of those people deserved to be treated the way that I treated them,” Irina said in an April 2 Instagram video. “I feel like being on the show was like having a mirror in front of your face, in the sense of seeing yourself in a different perspective… that opened up so much to me, and I’m still processing and going through everything that happened.”
