Season 5 of Love is Blind had a few standout villains.
My personal vendetta was largely against Stacy and her money-obsessed, bullying behavior, but Uche Okoroha was a clear standout for many of the season’s viewers. The Houston-based lawyer and entrepreneur put out good energy at first, as he chatted his way through a series of dates, but when things got serious, fans got salty. A prickly conversation between Uche and his main match of the season, Aaliyah Cosby, lost Uche any fans he may have had, after he belittled the ICU nurse over a two-years past cheating incident. Disapproving of cheating is all well and good, but Uche’s reaction didn’t earn him many fans — particularly once his own baggage was laid bare.
On top of his clear overreaction to Aaliyah’s honesty, Uche was sitting on a major red flag (or 12) of his own. He knew one of the other contestants — and a close bond of Aaliyah’s — before they entered the pods. He and Lydia (who also so happens to be half of the only successful season 5 couple) dated before they entered the experiment, and their previous knowledge of one another put the bounds of the experiment at risk. They were allowed to stay on, following assurances that they wouldn’t say anything until they made a connection, but Uche’s major reaction to Aaliyah’s honesty felt sour in the wake of this news.
Then there’s all the other drama. Uche’s reaction upon speaking to Aaliyah on the phone? Red flag. His behavior, and the lack of accountability, when they met in person? Massive red flag. The man appeared, at least through those Love is Blind cuts, to be the season’s standout villain, but his response to its reunion episode — which he chose not to attend — throws that villainy into question. Is Uche really as bad as he comes across on screen, or are his bad qualities a result of careful editing?
What did Uche say about Love is Blind on Instagram?
Getting a “bad” edit has long weighed Love is Blind contestants down, and it seems Uche may be the most recent victim of the practice — at least, according to him. We don’t have many other perspectives on the matter just yet, but it does seem worth noting that, in the reunion, few people stepped up to defend Uche. Aaliyah, who spoke with — and even tried dating — Uche following the show’s conclusion, stated that she believes she was never his type. She also clarified that, while they were dating, Uche’s tone was “still so very mean and kind of condescending.”
Because Uche failed to attend the reunion, he had no opportunity to respond to Aaliya’s version of events, or to the series of largely negative season 5 footage that was shown of him. Instead, he took to Instagram in the hours after the episode aired to push back on the overarching narrative, and answer a few fan questions about his time on the show. We won’t detail them all here, but peruse the gallery below to see everything he shared in that Oct. 16 post.
Uche addressed a number of questions, including queries into his attraction to Aaliyah — an undeniably gorgeous woman — his reaction to Miriam, his relationships with fellow pod members, and his continued texting of Milton, which Milton brought up during the reunion. To be fair, he came with plenty of receipts, but none of them quite explained away the behavior his cast mates recall Uche exhibiting. Uche also faced accusations of treating the Black women on the show particularly poorly, a claim he worked to explain away.
In response to questions about his attraction to Aaliyah, Uche explained that he does think “Aaliyah is beautiful,” and that “I love Black women, find Black women attractive and date Black women.” He seemingly tossed some shade Aaliyah’s way by also noting that its easier to “find an excuse as to why your relationship didn’t work out than to take accountability.” At several points throughout his story, he redirected people to an hour-long interview he engaged in with the Miss Understood podcast.
He also addressed the gap people noted between “pod Uche” and “BBQ Uche.” In the pods, Uche largely came across as intelligent, straightforward, and reasonably pleasant, but at the BBQ he was aggressive, confrontational, and sometimes straight-up mean. In the reuinion, Aaliya noted that the Uche she dated, post-Love is Blind, was far more similar to BBQ Uche than pod Uche. According to the man himself, however, he prefers “actual Uche,” who you can apparently “only find in person, not in an artificial environment filmed for entertainment purposes.”
Its fair to note that the format of Love is Blind is carefully constructed to produce certain results, but claims from other cast members — most notably Aaliyah — indicate that this may be yet another attempt, on Uche’s part, to paint himself as less of a villain.
The Instagram Q&A isn’t doing much to curry favor for Uche, but perhaps the podcast will be more effective. On the episode, which aired just ahead of the reunion, Uche addressed several of the standout topics from Love is Blind season 5, but the comment section shows just how unimpressed viewers are. Most people still see him as the official villain of season 5, and no amount of backtracking is going to change their minds.
