Few 90 Day Fiance couples have drawn more scrutiny than Amira and Andrew at the Tell All.
Andrew chose to not share his side of the story, but Amira did speak.
Backstage, Jovi and Brandon shared their doubts about Amira’s version of what happened in Mexico.
They drew ire from fans. But are they right? Or are they just, well, white?
With few exceptions, neither fans nor stars had doubts about Andrew Kenton’s behavior.
Did he receive an unkind edit? Absolutely.
But no matter the context, some of the texts and statements that he made were unkind.
Andrew had also been feuding very vocally with past and presents 90 Day Fiance stars.
He even picked a weird fight with longtime fan favorite David Toborowsky.
But just because people didn’t particularly like Andrew didn’t mean that they were Team Amira.
According to Amira, she arrived in Mexico City from France only to be detained.
She described being taken aside in a back room and then abruptly having her shoes and phone taken.
From there, Amira was whisked into a cell and detained for a couple of days before her deportation.
It was a harrowing, frightening experience — no one doubts that.
But fans and castmates alike had real questions about whether Amira was really as in the dark about her detention as she claimed.
After all, surely people aren’t detained and deported without cause … right?
Backstage, as you can see in the clip from the Tell All Part 2 that we shared, fellow stars were doubtful.
"I am kind of confused about this," Julia Trubkina remarked.
"I have no idea," Brandon Gibbs acknowledged.
"I would never call her a liar," Jovi Dufren chimed in, "because I don’t know the story."
"But," he opined, "the story seems bogus to me."
He then referred to his extensive travel, which he has done for work for many years.
"Like, I’ve traveled to a lot of places, to a lot of very sketchy places," Jovi emphasized.
"Yeah," Brandon agreed. "They don’t pick people at random and detain ’em."
"Exactly," Jovi stressed.
Overall, the cast concluded that they don’t know enough.
However, they observed that it’s possible that both Amira and Andrew were lying.
It was the assertions that Jovi and Brandon made that rubbed fans the wrong way, however.
“Surprise, surprise, the two white men cannot imagine Amira was treated unfairly by authorities," scoffed one fan.
Another wrote: “not these white men saying that airport security doesn’t randomly select people and detain them…”
Airports are one of the most notorious places on the planet for "random" searches and detentions.
“People do get detained at airports," another directly told Jovi.
"You obviously will never experience it because you are white looking and not perceived as a threat," the fan noted.
The fan then invited Jovi to please "GET EDUCATED!”
“I think you should get educated," Jovi retorted.
He explained "because I can imagine I’m a lot more well travelled than you.”
“And," he claimed, "nobody gets detained that long unless you did something wrong/illegal.”
It is worth noting that Amira is half-Egyptian, through her father.
Her heritage could easily have been a factor in her "random" selection for added scrutiny.
Just because a couple of white people have never experienced something doesn’t mean that everyone else plays by the same rules.
This is of course the essence of white privilege.
There are some race-specific challenges that white people do not face that others do.
Jovi and Brandon may face many challenges in their lives, but they are not marginalized for their race.
That said, some fans think that Andrew and Amira’s weird quarantine plan was what got Amira detained.
After all, she arrived on an international flight with a one-way ticket.
This may have made authorities wonder if she planned to overstay her vacation and take up residence in Mexico without documentation.
Nobody thinks that Jovi and Brandon were trying to be malicious or dismissive.
They were simply speaking from their experiences in international travel.
The trouble is that we all have to remember that our experiences are not universal.