Shaina Hurley ended up becoming the season 2 villain on the Netflix reality dating show.
Spoilers ahead! If you have not watched the first nine episodes of Love Is Blind season 2, bookmark this for later or proceed with caution.
If every season of Love Is Blind has to have a villain, the internet seems to think that this season's is Shaina Hurley. The 32-year-old hair stylist has a connection with both Kyle Abrams and Shayne Jansen in the pods and after she accepts Kyle's proposal (with his mother's engagement ring!) she turns around and tells Shayne she has feelings for him.
When Shaina and Kyle try to make things work in Mexico, she quickly decides that their religious differences are too great -- she's Christian and he's an atheist -- and packs up and leaves. Kyle tries to give it another go in Chicago only to have that attempt crumble in an awkward meeting with Shaina's family. And when the cast gets together for a bonfire, she seems to make a last-ditch attempt to take down Shayne's relationship with Natalie Lee.
ET's Will Marfuggi spoke with Shaina after the first nine episodes aired, and she calls the experience of watching it all play out "bittersweet."
"There's definitely some moments where I'm like, 'That's not how it fully happened!'" she says when asked if her on-screen portrayal is fair. "It's reality TV and there's thousands of hours being filmed and unfortunately the viewers are only seeing so much of it."
Her biggest regret is accepting Kyle's proposal despite having so much doubt about their relationship.
"That's where I completely own it. At the end of the day, I should have said, 'No,' and stuck to my gut and I didn't," she says. "I completely regret that because I could have avoided a lot further messiness and drama. I'm working on it. And it goes back to my people-pleasing and I didn't want to hurt him. And at the end of the day, he ended up getting hurt."
She insists that she didn't simply accept the proposal to continue on with the show, saying, "No, it was not to progress on the show. If that was the case for me, I would have made it to the altar, you know what I'm saying? In fact, it was the opposite."
So why did she say yes?
"I didn't find out that he was an atheist until right before he proposed. Feelings were already developed by that point, so my internal conflict was, 'OK, I had been engaged to a Christian man and look what happened.' So maybe it doesn't matter, maybe he can be a good person and we can overcome it," she explains.
And though she takes ownership of saying yes, Shaina adds that some of the blame does fall on Kyle for continuing their romance.
"I felt like, how many times can I tell you? I'm not holding anything to his head to stay. He had that choice. I definitely feel that he is being viewed as a victim in a situation, when I don't know how many times I can say it's not going to work," she says. "At the end of the day, he's a grown man. He could have left sooner."
As for her involvement in Natalie and Shayne's relationship, she also accepts that she spoke out of turn during the bonfire scene, calling their romance "fake."
"I think people's opinions were already made by the time it got to the beach bonfire scene that was with Shayne. I wasn't there to break them up and I was very clear about that," she insists. "It was more about clearing the air about what was going on behind the scenes that wasn't on film. So I think that was definitely a controversial scene for sure."
Of her conversation with Shayne, she says, "It was not fair of me to drag what was going on with me internally and putting it onto them. It's a huge regret. I should have never said that. I've apologized and I wish them nothing but the best."
She doesn't seem to think that a romantic relationship with Shayne could have been possible.
"I don't even know if me and Shayne would have made it on a romantic level. It could have been more of a friendship," she admits. "At the end of the day, I don't know if it would have worked. I don't know Shayne as deep as Natalie knows Shayne."
Shaina is also aware that she's been compared to season 1 villain, Jessica Batten, a contestant who was also torn between two guys.
"I think it's so sad how people are calling me 'the Jessica,' like, villainizing Jessica," she says. "Because again, we don't know what went on behind the scenes... I said, 'I will never judge another reality person again!'"
Not only does she want to avoid painting Jessica as a villain, but Shaina adds that "our situations were two completely different situations."
"I think maybe the comparison is she was villainized by the public, and I'm definitely being villainized by the public," she says.
As for what she wants viewers to know about her, Shaina explains that what you saw on the show wasn't necessarily accurate.
"What was portrayed is not who I am. I am not a home wrecker," she says. "I feel that people should just understand and take it in that this is reality television, and if they wanted something more, just watch a documentary."
The first nine episodes of Love Is Blind are currently streaming on Netflix. The finale will air on Friday.
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