“90 Day Fiancé”
The TLC reality series “90 Day Fiancé” chronicles the journey of couples who have either obtained or are in the process of applying for the coveted K-1 visa, which can only be granted to the foreign fiancés of US citizens. In just three months, the couples must figure out if their love is strong enough to withstand an array of legal and personal obstacles.
“90 Day Fiancé” first aired in January 2014 and is beloved by millions almost a decade later. The main show has nine seasons and has spawned several spin-offs such as “90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way”, where the American partner moves to a foreign country instead of the other way round; “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days”, for couples who are still talking online and have yet to apply for the K-1 visa; and “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After”, which follows the newlywed couples as they get used to the new stage in their relationship. “90 Day Universe” is the widely accepted term for the franchise’s many shows.
Obtaining the K-1 visa is vital for these couples, as without it, the foreign fiancé can’t live with their future spouse in the US. As part of the visa process, the couple signs documents declaring their intent to marry. If the foreign fiancé obtains the visa but hasn’t tied the knot in three months, they must leave the country; it’s also highly unlikely that they will be able to apply again.
Language barriers, culture shocks, and less-than-welcoming friends and family are yet more problems that the couples must overcome together. Although many of the couples haven’t known each other for very long, their relationship will be put to the test on numerous occasions in an experience that will either make or break them.
Darcey Silva
Born in September 1974, Darcey Silva is an exuberant TV personality, actress, designer, and entrepreneur, who shot to fame on “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days”. Not much is known of her parents, Nancy and Mike Silva, but we are aware that Darcey shares an incredibly close bond with her twin sister Stacey. As young adults, the girls suffered the devastating loss of their brother to cancer, which brought them even closer.
Darcey studied acting at New York City’s Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute from 1998 to 2001; she is also an alumni of the University of Houston and Marshall University. In October 2010, she and Stacey co-founded House of Eleven, a clothing brand which now sells beauty products, shoes, and home goods. The online store has a small but faithful customer base, and the twin sisters make sure to promote their brand at every opportunity by wearing its products on TV.
Stacey and Darcey also have a production company named Eleventh Entertainment. They made their co-executive producing debut alongside their father Mike on “White T”, a 2013 comedy movie starring Jamal and Jerod Mixon. The twins also sang background vocals for one of the film’s songs. In 2015, the production company partnered with AmVic Entertainment to make “Soul Ties”.
Exploring their singing ambitions, Darcey and Stacey broke into the music industry in 2018 with the release of their debut single, the cheerful dance-pop “Lock Your Number”. In 2019, they released a much more somber follow-up dedicated to their late brother, “Always In My Heart”. By now, Darcey was a popular reality TV personality thanks to her appearances in “Before the 90 Days”.
Other “90 Day” spin-offs that Darcey has participated in include “Pillow Talk”, “B90 Strikes Back1”, and “Self-Quarantined”. In June 2020, it was announced by Entertainment Weekly that the bubbly twins had landed their own reality show, “Darcey & Stacey”. The series follows their relationships, family and love lives. In the same year, Darcey was nominated for “Reality Star of 2020” at the People’s Choice Awards.
Darcey and her former husband share two daughters named Aniko and Aspen. Not much is known about Aspen, but Aniko, who participated in the Miss Connecticut Teen USA beauty pageant in 2021, has thousands of social media followers, and is possibly looking to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
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In June 2020, Darcey became engaged to Georgi Rusev, a dashing masseur and fitness model born in Bulgaria. The engagement was announced a few months later via an exclusive interview and photoshoot for People magazine. Unfortunately, Darcey confirmed in February 2022 that she and Georgi had broken things off.
Mere days before the announcement, Darcey’s cousin Shannon compared Georgi to the TV star’s mysterious ex-husband Frank Bollok. In the episode of “Darcey & Stacey”, the two women listed the similarities between Frank and Georgi: both are of Eastern European descent, love bodybuilding and working out at the gym, have the same height and body type, and are younger than Darcey. If that wasn’t enough, the men even have the same hairstyle.
In a confessional, Darcey shared more information about Frank, who is something of an enigma to the general public. Frank and Darcey were married for eight years, and he’s the father of her two daughters. The couple dated for two years before making things official in a beautiful New York City ceremony.
“In the beginning of our relationship, we talked about our dreams, our goals, our aspirations and he did some, but lacked a lot of it when it really mattered, lacked the motivation at times financially, to get ahead,” Darcey explained.
Although Darcey and Frank’s exact timeline is somewhat ambiguous, they were together in 2010, when Darcey and Stacey filmed a pilot for their reality show “The Twin Life”. Back then, the sisters lived in Mike’s Connecticut adobe with Frank, Stacey’s husband Goran, Aniko and Aspen, and Stacey and Goran’s son Parker and Mateo. In the pilot episode, Darcey described Frank as a new up and coming rapper, whereas Frank called her his number one fan. Interestingly, the two sisters divorced around the same time.
Jesse and Tom
Despite being unlucky in love, Darcey has never stopped trying to find her special someone. While filming for “Before the 90 Days”, she was in a relationship with Jesse Meester, who was later replaced by Tom Brooks. Darcey and Jesse’s relationship became especially toxic, as the parties had polarizing personalities. However, things weren’t always so bad between them.
#throwback Darcey and Jesse’s couple photo shoot from Season 1
————————————————————————————————-#90dayfiance #beforethe90days https://t.co/EczWsMBO8d pic.twitter.com/icG5wh9T3i— 90 Day Fiance Tea (@90dayfiancetea) September 29, 2018
In happier times, Jesse and Darcey met on a global dating website. She then visited Jesse in Amsterdam, and the trip went so well that she moved him into her home mere months later – which is when things began going downhill. The last straw after dozens of petty squabbles came when Darcey criticized Jesse’s way of cutting steak. After storming out of her house in front of Aniko and Aspen, Jesse eventually returned but refused to speak to Darcey for the rest of the evening. Understandably, things didn’t last long between them after that.
After her split from Jesse, Darcey wasted no time in getting back out into the dating world. She travelled to the UK to meet Tom after flirting online for months; from the beginning, Tom was slightly put off by Darcey’s intensity and memorably refused to sleep in the same bed as her during the trip, despite booking the couple an Airbnb.
The more emotional Darcey became, the more Tom withdrew emotionally. His disdain for Darcey became evident when she asked him to cancel their planned vacations to meet with Stacey in Albania. In Albania, Darcey began competing with Stacey, who was there with her fiancé – which didn’t go down well with Tom at all. Tom later admitted that if they’d gone on their planned vacations, he probably would’ve proposed to Darcey; instead, he gave her the key to his house.
Following a romantic farewell at the airport, viewers speculated that Darcey and Tom’s relationship might work out after all, but in the weeks to come, the stoic Englishman would continue to ignore Darcey whenever he felt like it. In the season three finale of “Before the 90 Days”, Tom called Darcey out for blowing up his phone with dozens of texts and voicemails.
Tom essentially broke things off by blaming his busy career, telling Darcey: “There’s so much going off in terms of work, I feel like I can’t give this love and time you want.” In the show’s “Tell-All” episode, however, Darcey confessed that she and Tom were still together but in a relationship limbo.
Tom and Darcey fans lost all hope in the show’s fourth season, when Stacey showed her twin sister photos of the Englishman in a romantic embrace with a glamorous blonde. The photos were the straw that broke the camel’s back, but when Tom asked Darcy to meet in person to discuss something, she feared that he would break up with her on camera, as Jesse had done.
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Despite her reservations, the TV personality met Tom at a restaurant. In a cruel move, he owned up to seeing another woman, and toyed with Darcey’s feelings by discussing the possibility of them fixing their dying relationship. At last, the Connecticut resident found the strength to break up with Tom… who told her, before she left the restaurant, that she’d put on weight.
Darcey’s perceived self-esteem issues have been a hot topic of discussion amongst fans of the “90 Day Universe”. It must be said that her physical transformation over the years has been one for the books; after numerous plastic surgery procedures and other tweaks, Darcey – and Stacey – are almost unrecognizable when you compare them to their original faces, which makes fans wonder if their unfortunate love lives are what caused them to undergo such drastic changes.
Over the years, Darcey has had a rhinoplasty, veneers, breast implants, and Brazilian butt lift to name a few. Her facial features and lips have also become considerably swollen, but despite fans’ concerns, Darcey shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
“90 Day Fiancé” Scandals
Part of what makes the “90 Day Universe” so entertaining is the strange relationships between the show’s participants. Without cast members such as Big Ed – who will go down in history for gifting his would-be spouse mouthwash and a toothbrush so she could improve her hygiene – the franchise wouldn’t be half as amusing. However, the dysfunctionality of the “90 Day Universe” cast members has led to some shocking scandals and controversies since 2014.
The relationship between Colt Johnson and Larissa Dos Santos Lima, which played out during the sixth season of the main series, raised red flags from the start. In November 2018, Colt shared that Larissa had been arrested after one of their many arguments. He wrote: “…The police came and knocked down the front door. They drew their guns on me and handcuffed me.” In the end, Larissa was arrested, but Colt declined to press charges.
Larissa was arrested yet again in January 2019 after another explosive argument that went too far. Police arrived at the couple’s residence and noticed that Colt had injuries such as bloodied gums and a swollen lip; when they tracked down Larissa, the Brazilian brunette claimed to have been physically assaulted by Colt. Days after she was taken into custody and held on $3,000 bail, Colt filed for divorce, and refused to have any further dealings with her.
Jorge Nava and Anfisa Arkhipchenko are another particularly memorable couple whose turbulent relationship horrified thousands of viewers. In February 2018, Jorge was pulled over for an alleged traffic violation, and police found almost 300 pounds of marijuana in his car. A few months later, the TV star pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and was sentenced to two and a half years thanks to his lawyer, who reduced the original 24-year sentence by making a plea deal. In the end, Jorge was released earlier than expected in May 2020.
Last but not least, Jason Hitch was also arrested in early 2017, but for domestic violence. News outlets obtained the police report in which his then-wife, Cassia Tavares, claimed that Jason had grabbed her arm forcefully enough to leave a mark and shoved her off their bed. A frightened Cassia proceeded to dial 911; when officers arrived on the scene, Jason claimed that she had accidentally fallen off the bed when he shifted the mattress.
After refusing to sign a sworn statement, Jason was arrested. Cassia soon filed for divorce after realizing that her then-husband was unwilling to change, and has since described him as a “mean man” who “has destroyed everything I felt for him.”
Although some couples of the “90 Day Universe” have less than happy endings, it’s important to note that plenty of others are in healthy relationships, and have since formed their own families. Colt and Larissa, Jorge and Anfisa, and Jason and Cassia are outliers compared to their former cast mates, no matter how much entertainment they brought viewers in the last few years.
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