Stephen from season seven of Love Is Blind caused more drama than any contestant before him when he left the show. Monica broke up with him after finding messages filled with “dirty kinks” to another woman on his phone while he was meant to be at a sleep test, and that was that. However, the questions that have been on everyone’s minds are what was actually in those texts? Was Stephen really at a sleep test or was it all a cover-up? Who was the woman he was messaging? Thankfully, the Love Is Blind season seven reunion filled many gaps for us, so here’s a full saga explaining everything we know about Stephen and the dirty texts scandal.
What we saw on the show
via Netflix
In this rollercoaster of an episode, we saw Monica and Stephen laughing together at the beginning, and Monica in tears at the end. Stephen and Monica had a very heated conversation about the messages and she asked him to Venmo the money she’d spent “carrying his weight” over the last couple of days. Of course, the camera crew missed the key moment, but we jumped in at Monica sobbing to Taylor that she’d found messages filled with “dirty kinks and c****g” on Stephen’s phone.
Stephen left the show after that and Monica spent the rest of her evening crying to Taylor and Garrett who were already on their way over to deliver festive autumn baked goods.
What Monica said after the episode aired
Monica sat down with Entertainment Weekly after the fateful episode aired and spilled all the tea about what happened.
She revealed that she scrolled right to the top of the chat to see when they started texting, and it was “some time ago, certainly before he left” to do the show. After, when she was explaining her findings to Taylor, she “couldn’t even remember the girl’s name,” but did remember the sexual nature of the messages, including one that said: “No one’s ever been able to satisfy my kinks the way you do.”
To her, the revelation was a “dagger to the chest.” She revealed that she didn’t know a lot about the woman and that Stephen was reluctant to tell her much, but she did say that “there was definitely a history there, for sure.”
What the producers said about missing the key moment
Love Is Blind creator Chris Coelen defended his camera crew after they missed out on filming the key moment. Chris firstly explained that he caught Monica and Stephen “after they had the conversation,” when Monica had already seen the texts. She had “confronted him” after she saw a text on his phone, and by the time the cameras arrived, they were “in the process of being done.”
Love Is Blind viewers were upset to miss such a vital part of the show’s drama, but Chris defended his camera crew, stating that “this is not Big Brother. We are documenting people living their real lives.” He pressed that it wouldn’t fit the show’s purpose to “have cameras following them 27/7.”
What Stephen said at the reunion
via Netflix
At the Love Is Blind season seven reunion, Stephen was forced to confront the group about the texts. It was the first time he’d addressed it all so publicly.
He began with “why should I explain? Nobody’s wanted to listen to me from the beginning… I’d love to tell it, but to be honest I don’t think anybody believes me or wants to hear.”
He then told the entire story: “I had a moment of weakness where somebody texted me and they were talking about a heart condition. And then immediately after that, they go into, ‘so I’ve got into some interesting fetishes lately.’ Understanding that this is probably a reaction or a conversation that I should not entertain, I was still curious how you made this jump. So, I said ‘what kind of fetishes?’ And then I entertained that.
“I entertained that conversation and I knew I shouldn’t. And then I put my phone down in the sleep study and I said you know what? I’ve done this before, I know where it ends, this is the man I don’t want to be. But I never deleted it because, to me, I emotionally conquered a demon that I’ve been fighting for a while.”
Hosts Nick and Vanessa then showed a photo of Stephen at the sleep test, proving that he did go there.
via Netflix
Vanessa then asked Stephen if he still spoke to the woman, and he said that he “only talked to her that one day” and that he’d never “met this girl in person.”
After Monica claimed that the texts had been “very long” and went “way back,” he then admitted that he’d “known her for years” and just doesn’t delete his text threads.
The most scathing part was when Stephen started “I’m not gonna go too deep into it out of respect for the individual,” but was interrupted by Monica who said “but you certainly didn’t have any respect for me in that moment. So that’s funny.” Brutal!
Stephen’s final thoughts
Stephen seemed pretty apologetic for everything that went down, but a bit miffed that he was still having to talk about it a year on.
He told the audience: “Nobody cares. Because if they did, we wouldn’t be here right now, having more accusations about something that we squashed a year ago. I understand that I completely f****d up. How much responsibility do I have to take?”
Love Is Blind is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.
