90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?
is one of the popular spin offs of TLC's show 90 Day Fiancé. Premiering in 2016,
Happily Ever After? follows the next stage of the journey for the franchise's more memorable
couples. But while fans may think they know all about the show, there's a lot to learn.
Ratings for the first season of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? were strong, which led TLC to
hatch some big plans. As TheWrap reported in 2016, the cable channel renewed the spinoff for a second
season, and that wasn't all. With one spinoff already a confirmed hit, TLC launched another one,
Before the 90 Days, focusing on couples in similar circumstances, with the twist being that these
long-distance lovers have only ever communicated online and haven't yet met face to face.
According to TheWrap's report, ratings for Happily Ever After? were the same as
the original 90 Day Fiancé, with each show averaging 1.6 million viewers that season.
In fact, the week TheWrap's report came out, the two shows resulted
in TLC's highest-rated Sunday primetime of the year among women 18 to 49 and 18 to 34.
Ratings for Happily Ever After? and the other 90 Day Fiancé shows just kept on growing.
In 2018, TLC announced it was renewing all of its various 90 Day Fiancé shows,
which had grown to also include 90 Day Fiancé: What Now?
The series is so popular that even its spinoffs have spinoffs!
Such is the case with Chantel Everett and Pedro Jimeno,
whose antics were so popular during their 90 Day Fiance run that fans demanded more.
Now, bad behavior is typically frowned upon, unless you're the star of a reality TV series.
Then, it's often encouraged and even rewarded. And that's exactly what
played out with Chantel and Pedro. During an episode where they attended a family dinner,
it actually became so heated that a brawl broke out right at the table!
As The New York Times pointed out in an article about the 90 Day Fiancé franchise, that scuffle
earned its participants their own spinoff. The Family Chantel premiered in July 2019.
While announcing news of The Family Chantel, TLC president and general manager Howard Lee said,
"This is an awesome moment for TLC, as we create a family show based on one of
our most popular 90 Day couples, and on a whole new night...Our fans can't get enough of Pedro,
Chantel and their larger-than-life families. For a brand known as THE destination for love,
relationships and family shows, The Family Chantel hits the bullseye."
Even though Chantel and Pedro are veterans to the 90 Day Fiancé family, with a show of their own,
they still admit that living while the cameras rolled was not easy.
Everett spoke to E! News about the couple's struggles, saying,
"It's hard to be vulnerable under the public eye,
you feel like you're in a fishbowl, but after a while, you forget the cameras are there."
Everett also shared why she went on the show and what she's learned.
"I really wanted to be a part of the show because
I wanted to show everybody how perfect I thought my relationship was."
She went on to reflect on her own relationship after her experience on Happily Ever After?
"Being on the show has made me realize that
there is no such thing as a perfect relationship and we have our flaws."
Some of the couples who appear on 90 Day Fiancé manage to attain a certain level of celebrity,
but they sure don't get the money you might expect to come with that status.
That came to light when several members of the cast launched GoFundMe pages and began
charging fans for video messages. One such cast member was Danielle Mullins, whose own GoFundMe
money-raising effort has since been deactivated after raising only slightly more than $650 total.
The stars have reportedly taken to GoFundMe because, as a source revealed to Radar Online,
90 Day Fiancé only pays members of its cast $1,000 to $1,500 per episode. Those who make
the cut and are asked to return for Happily Ever After? will see a salary increase,
although the source said the pay for those couples, quote, "doesn't go up much more."
However, that pay doesn't even hold true for the foreign men and women
visiting the U.S. on K-1 visas. The source added,
"They can't even get paid because they have to wait for a work
permit. [They only get paid] if filming takes place in their country."
Toronto Sun TV writer Rita DeMontis admitted that 90 Day Fiancé:
Happily Ever After? was her favorite guilty pleasure,
and she detailed why fans came to love the show as much as she does, writing,
"It has everything, sex, insinuations, jealousy and someone who smells...Couples arguing,
making up, making out, marking up their significant other's cars.
It's cringe-worthy and delicious at the same time."
She singled out Danielle Mullins and Mohammed Jbali, writing that,
"[Viewers] see the whole mess unravelling right before your eyes with tears and character
assassinations and Mohamed revealing for all to hear that he couldn't make love to his
wife because she 'smelled'...Initially, everyone booed for Mohamed as a heartless piece of work who
used Danielle to get into the U.S., legally. Did he marry for the green card? Who cares!
He's put up with a snivelling stalker who has harassed him with hundreds of emails and calls,
followed him across the country, called all his friends, and threw stuff at him."
Speaking of Danielle and Mohammed's tumultuous relationship throughout the first season, well,
we hate to be the ones to tell you that it didn't end well. But if you watched the show,
you probably could have guessed that on your own. Happily Ever After? chronicled their quickly
unravelling marriage, which ended when Jbali, who is significantly younger than Mullins, walked out
on her just two months after receiving his green card. Their separation led to a legal battle,
with Mullins' attempts at having the marriage annulled and her ex deported proving ultimately
unsuccessful. The couple finally ended things for good and divorced in 2017. She told E! News,
"I felt used, so I filed for an annulment. That was my best chance to get him deported...But when
he begged me to file for a divorce instead, I gave in so he could stay in America."
In a 2019 update, Mullins told InTouch that she now had a new man in her life,
although this time she's not jumping into marriage right away.
We're happy to hear she's found love again.
Not all the couples on the show ended up unhappy, but that doesn't mean there
weren't still complications. Take Nicole Nafziger and Morocco-born Azan Tefou,
whose 90 Day Fiancé story continued in Happily Ever After. Nafziger's situation was complicated
by the fact that she has a young daughter that her long-distance relationship also affected,
and skeptical parents who were convinced Tefou was using her to get a green card.
In Happily Ever After?, Nafziger traveled to Morocco to marry Tefou, and they wound up
canceling the wedding, twice. Fans have been questioning their relationship ever since,
but Nafziger continues to confirm their couple status in a recent Instagram post, writing,
"So happy to finally be with my love again"
According to InTouch, she explained she canceled the wedding because there was, quote,
"too much pressure" [and] "not enough time or money." She wrote,
"You can't rush this kind of stuff. [You should] do it in the right moment.
And it wasn't the right moment yet."
Ashley Martson met Jay Smith while vacationing in Jamaica, and their romance and subsequent
engagement were chronicled in 90 Day Fiancé. In an episode of Happily Ever After?, however,
their relationship took a nosedive when Martson learned that Smith had been cheating on her.
Martson did not take it well. In fact, when she confronted him about the indiscretion
after recently learning about it herself, Martson yelled at Smith,
"You're a piece of f---ing s---. That's what you are. I hope you
know that. I hope your d--- shrivels off and you f---ing rot in hell and you die."
A clearly defeated Smith didn't exactly smooth things over when,
while discussing his cheating, he asked her, quote, "Whose fault is that?"
She immediately began to see red and threw him out of the house. Directly after,
she called the police to report an altercation and have him removed from her property entirely. Still
incredibly angry and hurt, she wasted no time spilling the beans of his illegal-immigrant status
to authorities - as their fiancé visa had expired and she hadn't gotten around to renewing it.
Directly following the incident, she said,
"Our marriage is over."
…later claiming to InTouch that Smith had cheated on her with not one,
but a total of six different women.
Russ and Paola Mayfield are one of the franchise's success stories,
still happily married years after their first appearance on 90 Day Fiancé.
While the couple is still going strong, and, in 2019, welcomed their first child together,
they admitted their road to happiness has not been without obstacles. Perhaps the biggest,
the two admitted, was being filmed for a reality show in the first place. Paola told Fox News,
"At the beginning, for me, it was really hard. My English was really bad so I needed to ask my
husband what these people were [saying] about me...Now this is my fifth season. It's like,
no matter what you do, people are going to talk bad or good and you just have to deal with it.
You can be the best version of yourself but some people are not going to agree with that."
For Russ, the secret is simply to avoid social media as much as possible because,
quote, "it really is distracting because you get engulfed in it."
Usually, the fights viewers see on 90 Day Fiancé happen between the couples.
But, while taping one of the show's "Tell All" season finale specials,
Chantel Everett and Colt Johnson, who are each half of a different couple,
got into an altercation between the scenes. While the members of the cast hung out in a dressing
room before the taping, Everett asked Johnson if he was happier without Larissa Dos Santos Lima
in his life, since the couple had ultimately split. His response was sarcastic, saying,
"Oh, yeah, I'm totally happy. I love going through a divorce.
I love going through the stress and drama."
A heated divorce-related argument ensued, with Everett remarking that
Johnson seemed to love his mom more than he did his ex-wife, which prompted him to tell her to
"Please shut the f--- up."
Everett continued to berate Johnson about his love for his mother overshadowing the
love for his wife. Causing him to respond with what it seems like Pedro is always thinking,
"Chantel, you don't know s---, so keep your mouth shut."
Pedro ended up having to pull his furious wife away and out of the
room so everyone could calm down before taping resumed.
Some couples have fulfilled the promise of the show's title, and, as of 2020,
four of them have taken the next step by welcoming babies into the world.
As noted by TV Insider: Russ and Paola Mayfield, Brett Otto and Daya De Arce,
Melanie Bowers and Devar Walters, and Elizabeth Potthast and Andrei Castravet all have children.
Castravet couldn't wait to dish to Parade about being a first-time dad. Saying,
"Being parents is the most amazing thing...Like, one more reason to live. Because when you look
at the child, it's just like, this is what you live for right now. So, that's cool."
In October 2019, another of the show's couples
revealed they'd be welcoming a new addition to their family:
Loren and Alexei Brovarnik. Before the baby's birth in April 2020, Loren told Us Weekly,
"It's a surreal moment in our lives. For me, I see a lot of people I know announcing their
own exciting news, and now it's our turn...I'm excited, terrified, over the moon, nervous and
so much more! Alex is hands down the best partner I could have ever asked for during this time."
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