Larissa Lima is one of the most polarizing cast members in 90 Day Fiance history.
Some people love her. Some people hate her.
Often, the line between love and hate depends upon whether people have only seen her on the show or if they’ve followed her in posts and interviews off of TLC.
Now, she is no longer part of the franchise, as she was fired in September for her cam show.
Larissa says that they didn’t want her making more money than TLC was willing to pay her, but she also has a lot more to say.
In a lengthy interview with 90 Day Fiance blogger extraordinaire John Yates (it’s nearly an hour and forty minutes, and you can watch the interview here on YouTube), Larissa delves into every topic.
That means that rumors about her run-in with ICE on September 19.
That means TLC firing her. That means opening up about things that she has never before revealed about her plastic surgeries.
That means Eric, Carmen, and some feuds with castmates.
It also means a sore subject for many of Larissa’s critics — her children back in Brazil.
Larissa is speaking up
From her new home in Colorado Springs, Larissa is diving into her run-in with ICE, her feud with Nathalie, her boob job, her falling out with 90 Day Fiance, how she knows that Colt was cheating with Vanessa, and more.
But first …
“I believe the company wants to maintain old fashioned and rather odd values,” Larissa recently told a fan on Instagram who asked why she’d been given the boot. “Off in what they do actually tolerate. The problem the company had with me, was they did not want me making more money than they could offer.”
90 Day Fiance infamously underpays its stars
… To the point where Aaron Carter is weighing in on it, pointing out that stars — and he names Larissa specifically — deserve to be paid more. I can’t say that I normally find myself nodding in agreement when Aaron posts to social media, but he’s right. Estimates say that even series veterans like Larissa likely don’t make much more than $15,000 to $20,000 per season. Considering how immensely popular the 90 Day Fiance franchise is, it seems unfair.
Moving on …
So, Larissa sat down for an interview with 90 Day Fiance blogger John Yates. One of the hot topics was, of course, Larissa’s detention by ICE on September 19 — exactly one month prior to this interview. Some trolls immediately decided that Larissa must have fabricated the entire event for “publicity.”
Larissa explains
She says that the idea of being arrested was at the front of her mind, so when she was taken to court, she was fearful — as we have seen in the past whenever she had an immigration appointment — that this would be her arrest and deportation and the end of her life in America. What happened was that they wanted to look at all of her documents and papers. When there was nothing amiss, they released her — rattled but okay.
The fear was still looming large in her mind
“Any time that you are here in the country, without a green card, you can be detained. Even someone that has no charge, nothing,” Larissa notes. Sadly, this is true. Additionally, some people with green cards and some US-born citizens have been detained by ICE in recent years, as the white nationalists who are setting immigration policy at the DOJ and at the White House hope to terrorize people of color so greatly that even legal attempts to immigrate to the US no longer feel worth the risk. This is, simply put, state-sponsored terrorism.
The conspiracy theories are so weird
The idea that someone would fabricate a brush with ICE to attract publicity to their … U-Haul move to Colorado Springs … is bizarre. Besides, Larissa did not need the publicity. Just days earlier, she had become one of the Top 5 CamSoda earners of all time. Also TMZ confirmed the ICE story as it broke. The “truthers” are, as Larissa notes in the interview, simply people who have decided that she was lying and will not allow any evidence to dissuade them.
She also talks about her kids
Larissa notes that Debbie knew that she has kids and was not surprised. Additionally, she notes that she did “not feel good to not raise my kids.” However, “the one thing I have the power to do is help them financially and give them support when they grow, when they need it.” Since her kids are not in her custody anyway, she figures that at least she can make money to send to them in addition to speaking to them regularly. Her plastic surgery, as she has noted all along, is an investment in her future money-making capabilities. She wants to “give the world” to her kids.
Plus
Larissa reminds her confused fans that here in the US, she can make good money. That was not the case for her in Brazil. As she has said for a long time now, everything that she does is for her kids.
This interview reached a lot of people
It reached people’s hearts and minds. The Larissa on TV received a “villain edit,” and no one only watching her on the show will know Larissa like the people who follow her social media and watch her interviews does. That’s … really sad.
As for Nathalie
Remember the girl to whom Eric badmouthed Larissa? Larissa says that, contrary to Nathalie’s claims, it was no surprise to her that she was on 90 Day Fiance, that a producer had reached out to her about it beforehand. In fact, Larissa confirms something that we here at THG had mentioned in our own reporting — that Nathalie had signed a release prior to speaking to Larissa on the phone, otherwise they would not have been able to air her voice on the show.
So why are they enemies?
Larissa says that she and Nathalie were fine … until Nathalie accused Larissa of being a “s–t mother.”
About her boob job
When John asks Larissa whether she ever paid Eric back for her boob job, she revealed “there’s no payment.” After a moment, her meaning became clear: Eric never actually paid for her boob job. That was a fiction concocted for the show.
Speaking of which …
There were whispers about Larissa having a fight with production that landed her in the hospital. It turns out that it happened earlier this year, but after her boob job in February. She posted a photo flaunting her new boobs, and a producer called her and told her to take it down.
Things got heated
The producer was telling her that they would pull everything about her surgery from the show if she didn’t take down the boob job pic. The result? “My pressure was so high that I ended up in the hospital,” Larissa reveals of her blood pressure. Yikes! We’re glad that she’s okay.
About Vanessa …
Larissa says that, on January 10 of 2019, she got a look at Colt’s phone, where he had messages from Vanessa Guerra (you remember, his “friend”) who, Larissa recalls, had texted him things like “I’m tired of waiting.” She says that she warned Colt that she would expose Vanessa the next day, betting that Vanessa was also married.
As we all know …
That night, Colt called the police on Larissa claiming that she had assaulted him by scratching his lip. She was arrested — and spent hours the next day behind bars, unable to “expose” anyone and with much bigger problems than a cheater.
That was not an isolated incident
Colt had been slinging his dong pics to multiple women just weeks before that, something that Larissa had caught him doing. In December 2018, she exposed him for telling these Instagram side pieces who were trading nudes with him that his marriage for Larissa was purely a stunt for TV — something that was news to a heartbroken Larissa. The difference with Vanessa seems to be that Colt may have developed real feelings for her … if he’s actually capable of that.
About cast feuds
Larissa says that “Elizabeth and Andrei … they have a problem with me and with Colt, but they cannot be against both so they are just against me.” She explains that she met them in person while shooting promos for the show, and that she believes that Andrei and Libby resent her (and Colt) because the two of them upstaged everyone else — the Potthast-Castravet couple included — on Happily Ever After. Larissa doesn’t hold a grudge, saying: “I wish her good luck.”
Production also fans the flames of feuding
Larissa notes that producers are “more and more aggressive” when it comes to getting cast members to respond to or denounce each other at the Tell Alls. Shaun Robinson may host, but she’s working for production and focusing on questions that they want her to ask.
Carmen joins the chat
After watching for an extended period, Carmen was invited to join the chat by John — and was accompanied by her adorable dog. She explained that she was reluctant to give Larissa’s romance with Eric her blessing because their relationship early on was so messy and full of drama, including semi-public fights. She noted that Larissa already had a “trainwreck with Colt,” which is true, so she wasn’t eager for another one.
Larissa praises her friend
Asking John for leave to speak about Carmen, she says “she kept me healthy, she never gave up,” and she also notes that Carmen does not hesitate to call her out on her BS. In other words, she’s a solid friend but she’s not an enabler.
The fan responses cannot be understated
YouTube comments are usually a cesspool, but if you follow the link that we included above to watch the video, you can see comment after comment noting how Larissa has changed their minds about her — some declaring that she’s now their favorite from the show. Amazing the difference that unedited footage can make.
Additionally
A lot of fans are more convinced than ever that the Larissa that they were watching was a woman being driven to the brink of insanity by manipulations, lies, and mind games. Colt did the same thing to Jess after. It took many fans a long time to see Colt for the reality TV villain that he is.
Larissa has a lot of fans
This includes some new fans, but also plenty of old ones. John wishes her the best of luck, but it’s clear that she won’t need much to fulfill her business ambitions — especially now that she has her new body. But hey, a little luck never hurt. Good luck, Larissa!