90 Day Fiancé Stars Who Destroyed Their Reputation in a Single Episode

Introduced during the fifth season of “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days,” Gino Palazzolo and Panamanian native Jasmine Pineda first met during the COVID-19 pandemic via a sugar daddy dating website, ultimately becoming husband and wife in June 2023. In the beginning, Palazzolo was presented as a sympathetic figure — a socially awkward engineer who just wanted to find love. Meanwhile, viewers — and members of Palazzolo’s family — wondered whether Pineda might be best described as a gold digger. Over time, though, as with many of the couples involved with the “90 Day Fiancé” franchise, it became clear that both parties engaged in some seriously questionable behavior.

Palazzolo may have destroyed whatever goodwill he had with fans in a single episode when it was discovered that he betrayed Pineda’s trust by sending her naked photos to his ex. When asked point-blank whether he had done so, Palazzolo initially denied it. Only after he was presented with the proof, prompting Pineda to break down in tears, did Palazzolo confess to having done so, claiming that he was “rubbing it in to her” and that it was the only time he had done so. Whatever his reasons were, Pineda was left devastated, and viewers were not impressed.

“He’s disgusting,” wrote one YouTube commenter about the situation. “Shame on him. Means he would very easily post her pictures to humiliate her publicly if he wanted revenge on her in the future.”

Make no mistake — Angela Deem has been a lightning rod for controversy since making her franchise debut during Season 2 of “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.” Some fans have been done with Deem for years due to her wild antics. However, her one-time husband, Nigerian native Michael Ilesanmi, had issues of his own during his time in the “90 Day Fiancé” world. At various junctures, Ilesanmi was busted looking at, communicating with, or doing more nefarious things with other women. Ultimately, both Ilesanmi and Deem had moments that tested viewers’ patience and sympathy for them, but Ilesanmi’s point of no return may have come when he copped to having sex with Deem under false pretenses to dodge a request to cease his social media activity.

Ilesanmi claimed to have complied with a longstanding request from Deem to shed his social media profile during an episode of “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?” He then proceeded to have intimate relations with his then-wife, reportedly to help soften the blow of his eventual revelation that he had no intention of ceasing his online activity. “I did tell Angela last night that I was gonna take down the Instagram to convince her to be sweet with me,” Michael admitted (via People). “But I really don’t intend to take it down.”

The move was too much for some fans, despite Deem’s own issues. “Michael played her. He was wrong,” wrote one YouTube commenter. “Now Michael is completely finished,” wrote another fan.

Angela Deem — who has undergone a head-turning transformation over the years — was arguably as loud, brash, and in-your-face as anyone who has appeared on “90 Day Fiancé” or its myriad spin-off series. Her fiery temper is the stuff of legend and has resulted in iconic and disturbing scenes like the time she spit on Michael Ilesanmi during an argument, or the time she got so fired up during an argument with Ilesanmi’s aunt during a tell-all special that she pulled the front of her dress down and flashed her bare breasts to the cameras and everyone who was on set. However, she arguably cemented her reputation as a veritable force of destruction during an episode of “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?” when she damaged Ilesanmi’s car with her bare hands.

The incident occurred when Deem showed up unannounced at Ilesanmi’s home in Nigeria after he once again refused to take down his social media, which he claimed he needed to become an influencer. When Ilesanmi refused to greet her, Deem approached his car and started ripping pieces off its front end until he came out. “Good grief!! Angela is a horrible individual! She should be locked up,” wrote one YouTube commenter about the incident. Meanwhile, a Facebook commenter joked, “Angela about to give us the first ever ’90 Day Fiancé’/Locked Up Abroad crossover episode!”

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While many have questioned Deem’s treatment of Ilesanmi over the years, this may be the moment that stands out above the rest.

Moroccan native Azan Tefou and Nicole Nafziger entered the fray during Season 4 of “90 Day Fiancé” after meeting via a dating app. And while some fans were rooting for the couple to make it long-term, there were problems in their relationship from the start as they contended with contrasting cultural perspectives, expectations that were out of sync, and the sort of communication breakdowns that are commonplace among participating couples. However, Tefou may have gone too far in pushing his own expectations onto Nafziger during an episode that saw the then-couple hit the gym during the latter’s trip to Morocco.

Tefou had been on Nafziger about changing herself and being more physically fit, calling her “lazy” when she had reservations about leaping into the deep end with exercising. So, they went to the gym together, where Tefou proceeded to force her to do certain exercises, coaching her relentlessly as she attempted to do them. Eventually, she broke down in his arms mid-workout. As the couple was discussing the situation later during a confessional, Tefou doubled down on his laziness claims and added, “Physically, I’m attracted to Nicole, but it’s not like… just like 55%, for example.” Ouch.

“I find this whole storyline offensive and borderline body shaming,” wrote one Redditor about the incident. Meanwhile, another Redditor opined, “He isn’t wrong on the big picture, but I don’t think getting in her face that she’s lazy during the one time she’s actually putting in effort is really all that productive.”

In the annals of “90 Day Fiancé” lore, few people have managed to leave their mark like “Big Ed” Brown, who first appeared with his Filipino partner, Rosemarie, a.k.a. Rose Vega, during Season 4 of “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.” Their relationship was notable due to their 31-year age gap and Brown’s controlling and occasionally bizarre behavior, as captured by TLC cameras. Over the course of their run on the show, Brown did a lot of things to earn viewers’ scorn, like gifting Vega mouthwash, asking her to take an STD test over dinner, and his decision to get a vasectomy despite Vega’s desire to have children — none of which were even the worst thing Big Ed did. However, Brown’s image may just have been cooked in the early going, thanks to his unorthodox hair care routine.

As he was preparing for his first real meeting with Vega during an episode, Brown was snapped lathering his hair with mayonnaise. “Since I met Rose, I want to look young for her. So, I have been dyeing my hair, and it irritates my scalp. So, I found out that mayonnaise makes it smoother and less dry,” Brown explained, as he was shown scooping large amounts of the condiment out of a jar and mixing it into his locks. His later behavior within the relationship notwithstanding, Brown’s odd treatment grossed out watchers.

“What is actually wrong with this man, everything about him is unnerving,” wrote one YouTube commenter, capturing the temperature of the thread.

Prior to Mohamed Jbali and Danielle Mullins’ messy divorce, the couple arguably had one of the chaotic relationships in “90 Day Fiancé” history. A 2024 Screen Rant feature went so far as to declare that the two were “the most controversial couple” in the franchise. Debuting on Season 2 of the flagship series, the Jbalis’ relationship was as transactional as any the show has seen, with both parties engaging in cruel behavior when it didn’t live up to their expectations. For her part, Mullins concealed information about her financial situation, which was unfair to Jbali, and eventually threatened to have him sent back to Tunisia. However, Jbali rubbed viewers the wrong way during a tell-all episode when it was revealed that the reason the couple had experienced an intimacy drought was that he was repulsed out by her.

“He has told people that I smell and I peed on him,” Mullins declared, to the shock of everyone on set, after Jbali initially declined to offer full details. In fairness to Jbali, he seemingly tried to spare Mullins the humiliation at first, but once she uttered the word “smell,” he fired back with, “You do!” and then added, “This person here, she has some stuff that I don’t like.” Needless to say, having something like this said on television is probably the last thing on Earth anyone wants.

“This man showed more emotion saying ‘you do!’ than at his own wedding,” one comment read.

Where bombastic behavior and her love for life’s finer things (or simply money) were concerned, Brazilian import Larissa Lima — who went on to rack up multiple arrests — reached the same rarefied air of “90 Day Fiancé” icon Anfisa Arkhipchenko that once occupied when she began appearing on the show during Season 6. The tantrums she threw when her reality with partner Colt Johnson didn’t meet her expectations are the stuff of legend. In an episode of “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After,” she went so far as to flush her wedding ring down the toilet in a fit of rage during an argument. However, the moment when she truly established her villainous reputation may have come during her original “90 Day Fiancé” run when she uttered one of the most quotable lines to come out of the franchise.

During a family barbecue, Lima got into a major argument with Johnson’s cousin, John, who strongly questioned her intentions for marrying him. The back-and-forth grew increasingly heated until Lima shrieked that he would no longer be invited to the couple’s wedding. The incident culminated in Lima shouting at the family, “Who is against the queen will die!” before storming away. It was a statement perhaps better suited for a comic book than a family gathering, and while it became an internet meme and a memorable part of “90 Day” lore, the whole scene was an image-killer for just about everyone involved.

“These are the worst stereotypes of people I have ever seen,” one YouTube viewer opined.

Paul Staehle and Brazilian native Karine Martins were among the first round of couples when the spin-off series “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days” was introduced. Like the other participants on the show, their relationship began online and started to develop before they had actually met in person. Not unlike other participants in the franchise, Staehle wasn’t fully transparent about his history before the two decided to take their relationship to the next level. Although he eventually came clean about having a criminal background — Staehle served 18 months in a correctional facility after being convicted of crimes including arson — the way in which his confession played out was brutal for his image.

During the episode in question, Staehle sat down with Martins in a public place and gave her all the brutal details of his past misdeeds, clearly feeling shame as he did so. “She doesn’t deserve damaged goods; it’s not fair to her,” he later declared in a confessional interview. While some might say that risking his relationship for the sake of honesty was a brave thing to do, Staehle subsequently got up from the steps and bolted into a nearby wooded area in a panic, leaving a stunned and confused Martins behind and alone.

“He wanted Karine to feel badly and run after him, getting her sympathy, and distracting her from the awful stuff he had just told her by becoming the victim himself,” opined one Redditor.

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Leida Margaretha provided viewers of the sixth season of “90 Day Fiancé” with one of the darkest moments we’ve seen on the flagship show. The Indonesian native was the partner of Eric Rosenbrook, who had multiple children of his own entering the relationship. As is often the case on the show, Rosenbrook’s children and Margaretha didn’t exactly hit it off initially, as motives were questioned and cultural differences came to the forefront. However, Margaretha’s response to the friction — which included a rivalry with his daughter Tasha — and her desire to be his absolute No. 1, seemingly placed Rosenbrook in an impossible situation.

As if ordering Rosenbrook to kick Tasha out of their apartment wasn’t bad enough, Margaretha eventually pressured Rosenbrook to stop paying child support for his daughter, Jennica. In her view, he needed to prioritize her and her son from a previous relationship above all else. “Right now, I’m thinking about calling off the wedding because I don’t feel like Eric is making me his priority,” she declared during an episode that saw the couple have a heart-to-heart in the park. As they spoke, and Rosenbrook lamented her insistence that he become a “deadbeat dad,” Margaretha bristled indignantly about the amount of money he was paying to support his child.

While the worst was yet to come for the couple, the episode was a horrible look for Margaretha.

In what might have been one of the oddest pairings the series has seen over the years, thanks to a four-decade age gap, Mark Shoemaker and Filipino import Nikki Mediano made waves during Season 3 of “90 Day Fiancé.” If the discrepancy in their respective years didn’t give off daddy-daughter vibes, the condescending manner in which Shoemaker treated Mediano on the show certainly did. Over time, the details of their relationship veered into disturbing territory. At one point, Shoemaker gave Mediano just 24 hours to decide whether she ever wanted to be a mother (as he didn’t want to have additional children). Well before the bigger problems came, though, Shoemaker had done well to cultivate an image that was both creepy and tacky.

During his debut episode, he was famously snapped pointing to himself in the mirror and exclaiming, “You’re a specimen!” However, his worst moment was arguably when he proposed to Mediano with a ring that was literally just a plastic zip tie. “A zip tie? I already found him to be very creepy and controlling before I knew about the zip tie, now he is just a jerk plus the creepy part,” wrote one YouTube commenter about the impromptu engagement ring.