Love Is Blind’s Bliss opens up about dramatic wedding day decision with Zack
The Love Is Blind season four finale has officially revealed which couples say “I do” and which were left at the altar.
The season finale of the hit Netflix reality dating series, which dropped on Friday 14 April, followed the four remaining engaged couples on their wedding days. Leading up to their nuptials, there was much speculation over whether Zack Goytowski and Bliss Poureetezadi would tie the knot. Goytowski, a 31-year-old criminal defense attorney, initially proposed to Irina Solomonova in the pods, but went back to the 33-year-old senior program manager after he and Solomonova called it quits.
Throughout the season, Poureetezadi seemed hesitant to marry Goytowski because she wasn’t his first choice. When the couple met each other’s family, Poureetezadi’s father was reluctant to give his blessing to Goytowski as well. Although their relationship was full of ups and downs, the two eventually said “I do” and were married in the season finale.
Following the episode, Bliss Poureetezadi has shared insight into her decision to marry Goytowski, despite initially being his “second choice”.
“I don’t see me as a second choice. I see this story as a second chance,” she said in an interview with USA Today on Friday. “It’s not like he was with Irina and she was the only one who wanted to end things, and he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have anyone. I guess I’ll go with my second choice, Bliss.’”
“Forgiveness is something I’ve really worked hard to be good at,” she continued. I feel like this scenario is a really beautiful opportunity for me to follow through on that and embrace grace.”
The senior program manager also revealed that the couple had decided to say yes to each other even before cameras were rolling on their wedding day. “We’re both highly analytical, wordy people, so we talked about it a ton and we came to the conclusion that we were going to say yes,” Poureetezadi explained. “I still wanted there to be space for either of us to say no if suddenly we changed our minds, and we would both be understanding. But we agreed that we were going to move forward and say yes at the altar.”
At the start of the season, Goytowski was torn between his emotional and intellectual connections with both Poureetezadi and Solomonova in the pods. However, he decided to propose to the 26-year-old business owner and the two travelled to Mexico with the other engaged couples. But it was during the post-pods retreat that Goytowski and Solomonova realised they weren’t a good match, and he returned to Seattle asking Poureetezadi to take him back.
Speaking to USA Today, Poureetezadi revealed that it was actually Love Is Blind producers who informed her that Goytowski wanted to meet in-person. “I’m open to second chances and having discussions, and if I hadn’t felt so strongly for him, I just wouldn’t have gone [to the restaurant],” she said. Upon seeing Goytowski for the very first time, Poureetezadi said she was most surprised by their physical chemistry.
“Our eyes locked, the world disappeared – it was a very intense reaction,” she shared. “And I wasn’t really surprised to hear that things ended with Irina. No person is all bad and everyone has great qualities, but [I knew] he was eventually going to see what I saw on the other side of the pods.”
Bliss Poureetezadi and Irina Solomonova didn’t see eye to eye in the pods. The 26-year-old business owner told Goytowski that there was “tension” between the two women in the living quarters, and at one point, Solomonova asked to borrow one of the birthday candles Poureetezadi had prepared for Goytowski’s birthday. The senior program manager previously explained that she tried to “take the high road” in her interactions with Solomonova, but the two haven’t spoken since cameras stopped filming.
“We didn’t meet up or anything,” Poureetezadi said. “She did send a text message to me when they got back from Mexico, and I didn’t really respond to it. I just wish for growth for her and for change, and to take this as an opportunity to self-reflect.”
Irina Solomonova sparked much backlash from fans for her “immature” behaviour after the season four premiere. Viewers felt she acted like a “mean girl” on the show, especially in her interactions with Poureetezadi and fellow cast member, Amber Wilder. On 2 April, the business owner issued an apology for the way she “mistreated” the other contestants. In a video posted to Instagram and TikTok, Solomonova explained that she was delayed in responding to fans’ criticism because she wanted to “really get my thoughts together” before issuing a statement.
“I want to start off by saying sorry that this video is a little delayed. I really wanted to take some time to process everything that has been going on this past week and really get my thoughts together before I responded,” she began the clip. “The first thing I want to say is that I have privately apologised to the people that I have hurt and mistreated. Second of all, I wanted to say I’m so, so sorry for the people that watched the show that felt frustrated, angry, and hurt by the way that I was mistreating people on the show. It was very immature and naive of me in a lot of those situations.”
She then directed her apology to her fellow Love Is Blind contestants – including Goytowski, Bliss Poureetezadi, Amber Wilder, Jackelina Bonds, and Micah Lussier – for her interactions with them on the show. “Even Zack,” Solomonova added. “He was so vulnerable with me and I mistreated him and shut him out.”
“I’m genuinely so, so sorry,” she said. “I want to add value to people and I want to make people feel seen and who I was on the show was the compete, exact opposite of that person.”
