It was almost exactly one year ago when 90 Day Fiance fan-favorite shared some wonderful news.
Her husband, Omar Albakkour, finally had his visa approved and could come to the United States.
The two had previously been separated by an ocean and legal hurdles, and their updates these days are from the U.S.
Avery has also revealed something that a few fans already suspected: she and Omar were secretly married before filming their on-screen nuptials.
Avery Mills — seen here with her husband, Omar, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — was not an instant fan-favorite.
People questioned her youth, and her portrayal as being wishy-washy or even flaky on the show made people doubt her decision-making.
However, the authenticity of her love story, her relationship, and of Avery herself won people over, and these two are a widely beloved couple.
This week, Avery revealed that one part of her story was not as authentic as viewers were led to believe.
Taking to TikTok, she shared (in a now-deleted video, which raises some questions) some "big tea" about her past.
Teasing fans before announcing the news, Avery wrote: “I’ve never told people this bc I thought I would get in trouble.”
Almost like a subliminal message (but not really), Avery’s confession popped up towards the end of her TikTok video.
"Omar and I got secretly married when we were in Lebanon," she revealed.
Avery shared that this was "because we were warned by a camera man that the show will try to mess up our wedding."
"Not even the show knows about it," Avery admitted.
"And," she detailed, "my mom didn’t find out until after."
Like many little white lies, no matter how good the intentions, very naturally led to some other necessary embellishments.
"So, in teh scene that I was mad at Omar for not getting the wedding ready," Avery recalled.
She confessed: "I had to act like I was so mad at him."
"But in reality," Avery explained, "we already got married earlier that morning."
Avery and Omar aren’t the first cast members who were married before their on-screen wedding.
This has happened before, dating all of the way back to Season 2.
Some will argue that 90 Day Fiance producers are going to far when things like this happen, but let’s look at the facts.
First of all, as Avery made clear, this was not the show’s doing.
One member of the production team advised her good-naturedly that getting married ahead of time was a good idea.
It’s not that producers were going to unleash a swarm of bees at the wedding — but an already married couple could have real peace of mind.
That doesn’t mean that the subsequent footage wasn’t dishonest, but that it wasn’t production’s fault.
Avery did what she had to do for her marriage and her happiness.
Reality stars re-take scenes or re-hash arguments all of the time for the camera. This was just, you know, a bit more than that.
By the way, "fake weddings" like Avery and Omar did for the camera aren’t reality television exclusives.
Real neighbors don’t go on annual vacations like Real Housewives do, and no real dating situation compares to any Bachelor’s.
But people in real life marry secretly before their official weddings all of the time. It’s a smart move for the couple’s sanity, and harms no one.
We want to be clear that there are instances where production and editing have absolutely gone too far with the show.
Horrible behavior has been effectively covered up, and reasonable people have been edited to look unreasonable just to get a rise out of viewers.
But we don’t begrudge Avery and Omar for this fib. We’re just so glad that they found each other and their happily ever after.