When it comes to long-lasting marriages and love connections, Netflix’s hit dating reality competition series Love Is Blind doesn’t exactly have the best track record — and sadly, season 7 star Ashley Adionser was one of its failures following her divorce from Tyler Francis.
Now that a few months have passed since she officially announced that she filed for divorce, Adionser recently opened up to fellow Love Is Blind star Amber Desiree “AD” Smith, who had her own heartbreak on the show, to discuss what led her to end her marriage for good.
On the May 21 episode of the What’s The Reality podcast, Adionser shared that her relationship with Francis was so far from what she had envisioned following his closet full of secrets, that she didn’t even recognize him.
“I was looking at this man like who are you? It was so dark, it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my actual life,” she said.
“As you know, anything that you say in the pods, and anything that you say while filming, is law,” Adionser said of the initial connection the two made in the pods. “It is vital that you stick to it… I even go back and forth in my head if he ever loved me. They don’t think the love is real from Love Is Blind, but it is! It was for me!”
Getting emotional, she continued, “This was someone I made vows with,” she said. “My faith is important to me, we said this before God. I had to see it through. I never wanted to get divorced.”
Breaking down in tears, Adionser added “Tyler has taken enough from me, he cannot take that as well.”
You may recall that halfway through their season, Francis shockingly revealed that he had three children that he had never told Adionser about due to what he described on the show as merely being a “sperm donor.”
However, once the season began airing, receipts began piling up with proof that he was much more than a sperm donor and actually had a relationship with the mother and the children — but conveniently omitted those details.
Nevertheless, they married anyway and Adionser furiously defended him online as the show was airing and doubled down further at the reunion in October 2024.
However, in January 2025 she publicly confirmed that she was divorcing Francis after a little over a year of marriage.
“After much reflection, I want to share that Tyler and I have been separated for several weeks and have now made the difficult decision to end our marriage,” Adionser said in a statement.
“While I had hoped for mutual understanding and transparency in our relationship, it has become clear that our paths are no longer aligned, making it impossible for me to continue in this marriage.”