‘Love Is Blind’ star Taylor Rue says she and JP Pierce spoke after breakup

Only two couples remained on Season Five of “Love Is Blind” after Taylor Rue and Jared “JP” Pierce decided to call it quits, just a few days after they got engaged.

Taylor and JP immediately connected in the pods and he proposed halfway through Episode Two, making them the first official couple of Season Five. But when they met for the first time, it was clear something was missing.

Their first conversation was punctuated by long, awkward pauses, and JP started sweating. To lighten the mood, Taylor joked that her eyelashes were going to fall off. “These are fake, by the way. You can’t tell?” she asked.

JP responded, “You can tell,” but said she looked “pretty.”

She later mentioned the gap between his teeth in her confessional interview and revealed she “probably wouldn’t have gone after him” in the real world.

They flew to Mexico for a couples getaway with the other couples in Episode Four and their labored conversations continued. Taylor called out her fiancé for lacking the open communication he had in the pods. They argued and Taylor decided to end the engagement in Episode Six.

She speaks about the breakdown of their relationship in an interview with TODAY.com.

Taylor says their engagement in the pods “felt fast.”

“But it felt right,” she says. “I mean, it is fast. You’re dating this person quickly. But we had a very strong connection.”

As for why their relationship fizzled in the real world? The teacher seems just as confused as some viewers likely were.

Taylor says she’s still “trying to figure out” why she and JP couldn’t connect after the pods.

“That’s probably a good question for JP because I know I was myself in the pods and I was myself in Mexico. I felt like I just fell in love with this version of JP that wasn’t in Mexico. That was scary,” she says.

Taylor reiterates that she is still trying to process their breakup and figure out what went wrong.

When she voiced her concerns to JP in Episode Six, he explained that he shut down after seeing her in person because he was surprised by how she looked.

“I understand that you tried to present yourself and look as best you could, but I feel like if you would’ve presented yourself like this, without any makeup, it would have been better,” he told her.

He said she seemed “fake” during the reveal and told her to not wear makeup going forward. She refused and said would make her own decisions.

Taylor spent the night in another hotel room before returning the next morning and taking off her engagement ring. She said she couldn’t see a future with them.

Taylor tells TODAY.com JP’s remarks about her makeup was not the reason she left, although she acknowledges it was “hurtful.”

“But, you know, I can handle a comment here and there and everybody has their opinions,” she says. “But, for me, ultimately, I left because the emotional connection that JP and I had built in the pods was completely thrown out the window in Mexico.”

JP and Taylor.Netflix

On the show, couples move into an apartment rented out by Netflix and live together before their weddings. Taylor says she knew she couldn’t continue the experiment knowing co-habitating was the next step in the process.

She shares, “I had never lived with a guy before and so that’s a huge step in a relationship. And because I had one foot out the door, one foot in the door, I didn’t feel like moving forward with our relationship would have been smart for either of us.”

The kindergarten teacher continues, “So I just followed my heart and because I wasn’t 100% and I don’t think he was 100% about me–we both deserve that—that’s ultimately why I walked away.”

Looking back at her experience on the Netflix dating series, Taylor says she “wouldn’t change anything.” She also says they asked each other deep questions in the pods and she felt confident in their connection when she agreed to marry him.

“No, I don’t have any regrets. I learned a lot from it,” she says.

Taylor also confirmed in an interview with E! News that she has spoken to JP since their fallout in Mexico. She said her former fiancé contacted her after filming ended, but she “just wasn’t ready” at the time.

“I was like, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you,'” she shared. But, she eventually changed her mind.

“And then a couple of months back, I actually reached to him and we had good conversation, but we actually didn’t talk about anything that really needs to be talkedaout, so still waiting for that,” she said.

Fans will likely see them discuss their breakup when the cast reunites at the upcoming Season Five reunio