The latest episode of 90 Day Fiance: Before The 90 Days introduced us all to Christian and Cleo.
Christian lives in Minnesota and is the life of the party. Cleo is an autistic model and is the franchise’s first transgender woman on the cast.
On screen, the two have yet to meet in person. There are a lot of unknowns about how things will go once they meet.
But they filmed many months ago. Last year, in fact. Did they make it through their season. Are they still together?
Christian is a 30-year-old “life of the party” extrovert from Minnesota. He is excited to meet Cleo for the first time when he flies out to London.
During his introductory episode, he answered some fairly s–tty — not malicious in intent, but not good either — questions from some friends.
He very accurately told the camera that it was inappropriate for people to ask about Cleo’s genitals. Just as he would not ask a friend about his girlfriend’s genitals. It’s true, and he should say it.
Cleo is transgender. She is also autistic.
She knows that Christian both accepts and loves her for who she is. But she also worries about outside pressures in our deeply transphobic society that might tear them apart.
There are no obvious smoking guns — like bitter posts or a marriage certificate — to spoil how things end. But there are clues when it comes to the question of Christian and Cleo’s status.
Cleo has not yet spoken about every aspect of her life. Not on camera, anyway.
She’s an Italian model. She lives in London. And she’s autistic. And she’s transgender.
But obviously, those are just a few demographic details. For example, did you know that she has a side Instagram that she devotes entirely to drawing anime fanart?
Obviously, I’m not saying that Cleo took the fast lane to being one of my favorite cast members because she drew fanart of my Hunter X Hunter OTP.
(I’m not saying it. It’s true, but I’m not saying it)
But I mention this sideblog because, even though it’s just her anime fanart, it is full of “likes” from Christian’s Instagram.
Similarly, Cleo also has a side Instagram devoted entirely to her cats. As many cat ladies do.
(We don’t know if she’d find “cat lady” to be a pejorative label; we certainly would never use it as such)
That, too, is full of “likes” from Christian. Even though the cats modeling for the photos will likely never notice.
Cleo’s latest piece of fanart featuring a “like” from Christian dates back to February.
And the most recent “like” from Christian on her all-cats-all-the-time blog? That was last month, in May.
Which means that the two are still following each other (at the very least) and, as of a matter of weeks ago, still engaged in friendly and supportive social media interactions.
Now, some of those interactions — the “likes” from Christian — might sound like they happened a long time ago.
But we should keep in mind that they filmed in October. Remember, Christian went to a Halloween party. (Castmate Riley went to a Juneteenth gathering, but not everyone films simultaneously)
Also? Cleo “liked” one of Christian’s pics as recently as one week ago. That is, at the very least, friendly.
It is always possible that they broke up but remain friends. Contrary to what some fans of this franchise seem to think, it’s pretty normal to be friends with an ex.
And it is even possible that they had a bitter breakup — but are still mature enough to keep to their NDAs and even mislead followers with “likes.”
But there are still very good odds that they are still together. If we don’t find out in the coming weeks, we’ll almost certainly know when the Tell All airs.
Unrelated, but a lot of viewers sent Cleo messages on social media to ask about her accent.
She’s an Italian model, but she lives in London. Her accent doesn’t sound like it exactly matches either country.
She has promised to address this in the future. Right now, she’s polling followers on which platform would be best for her to discuss it. I’m rooting for Instagram (I hate TikTok) but we’ll cover it regardless.