Transport yourself back to February of 2020. The world was being faced with the threat of Coronavirus and slowly we saw the whole world shutting down. There was fear, panic, and despair running rampantly through the hearts of just about everyone, but one thing kept our sanity in tact! Each week, millions of people tuned into their favorite reality TV show 90 Day Fiance. This season was really unlike anything else that had ever come before. This season had the clown-like character Big Ed, and also would be the first season to star a same-sex couple!
As you may know, I was one half of that first same-sex couple on this season, and the result was unlike anything I could have ever expected. I was faced with some of the most brutal onslaught of hate from the fans of the show. Was it justified? Was I truly this awful villain? Was I this clout-chasing, fake-bisexual monster that everyone thought I was? Sometimes people were so insistent about who they saw on TV, that I began to believe it too...
Perhaps the intense backlash was due to the fact that I was a sex worker, or the fact that everyone was cooped up inside, living in fear and frustration. I also realize that my attitude, behavior, and overall demeanor in several scenes was anything but pleaseant. There was a massive misunderstanding between viewers and myself on how I could be both celibate, seemingly asexual, but reveal my body in a sexual way online. The two things could not co-exist in people's narrow minded points of view. I completely understood, because if I was an outsider watching myself, I'd probably think the same thing. Me, as a person, made no sense! For me, doing sexy content was just something that I did for money. I did it when I was sick, and living in a hospital. I did it when I was feeling anything but sexy or sexual. It was purely robotic, and something that I did because 1. I have the audience wanting this sort of content and 2. it was something that I, a chronically sick person, could do from home. People seem to think that just because someone does spicy content online, that the public has free reign over their bodies and that this person is 100% this way in real life. It could not be further from the truth.
I am a person who is very cautious when entering into physical relationships, and was even more so during the time of filming due to several health factors that altered my physical appearance. During filming I was 28 years old, and grappling with the fact that my body had changed a lot since I got sick with aplastic anemia. In case you are wondering what aplastic anemia is, it is complete failure and shut-down of the bone marrow. It is when your body stops producing the 3 major blood cell groups: platelets, red blood cells, and white cells. This causes a whole array of other issues such as severe fatigue, extreme bruising and internal bleeding, and being susceptible to infections. Due to my low immunse system I frequently struggled with skin infections, mouth sores, and even warts on my feet. It was something that I felt great shame and embarrassment about, and I think it definitely played a huge part in why I was so shy to be touched and touch others.
There is so much more to the story, and some parts are a bit graphic in nature. I do reveal almost everything in my new memoir, "Empty Blood", but if you aren't much of a reader, have no fear, I actually read the chapter about my time on 90 Day Fiance in Unfiltrd's new official podcast called UnfiltrdTalk! You can listen to the first episode and hear more about the absolutely UNFILTRD story of my time on the show here:
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Check back each week for a new episode, a new guest, a new story!
Xoxo
Stephanie