MAFS UK star Joe has finally revealed why he ghosted Julia Ruth – and how the pair were caught by show bosses.
Viewers were stunned when feisty reality star Julia Ruth returned to the show to admit she’d enjoyed an off-camera trip to Lanzarote with Joe, who was paired with Maeve on the series, and they had slept together.
Explaining what motivated them both to escape abroad together after sliding into each other DMs days after they both quit the experiment, Julia-Ruth told The Sun last week that they were both looking for a “rush” after the rollercoaster experience of filming.
But now Joe has had his say, after Julia Ruth told the group that he dumped her following their trip.
Appearing on The Tom Talks podcast, the reality star shared: “Obviously after the show, I think it was a week after the show I was going on holiday by myself. Julia-Ruth then went out a few days later than me, not too sure of the timeline.
“She then messaged me, asking me if I was okay and we had a normal conversation and then she basically said ‘Oh I wish I was going on holiday’.
“And then she just ended up coming on the holiday and we had a lot of fun. It was great to share our experiences together, because the pressure was off, we were fully decompressing. It was nice to do that with someone who has a similar experiences.
“There was a little bit of a romance while we were there.”
Joe went on: “We got back and I just think Morally for me it wouldn’t have been right to pursue anything with her in terms of something serious.
“I don’t think that would have been right for me, it just didn’t feel right for me to then pursue a romantic relationship.
“ The important thing is we were both single, we’d finished our marriages, we were done and it was after the show. I never had any intention to go back on the show. What I do in my personal life is up to me.
“I can see that it was insensitive because they know each other. But I was single and I always made sure there weren’t any signals during the show.”
He also opened up on production finding out about their secret trip abroad, adding that they both had psych calls with production.
Joe said: “We had them on the same day, and we both said we were in Lanzarote. Production stirred the pot.
“In a way I actually feel sorry for her [Julia Ruth], she went with the intention of keeping it to herself.”
It comes as Julia-Ruth admitted to The Sun that she “felt used” after hers and Joe’s Lanzarote trip.
She told us: “I felt used because he was pursuing me after the holiday. I left the holiday a little bit earlier than he did, and when I got back he was sending me messages saying ‘The second I get back from holiday, I really want to either come up to London or you come to Manchester.’
“And he was like, ‘I’m so into you’. He was sending all these text messages saying he wanted me to meet his friends.”
Then, abruptly, the day before they were due to meet again and she was set to travel to Manchester, Julia-Ruth claims Joe pulled a bizarre move.
“He sent me a message saying he he had fallen out of bed and broken his arm. He sent a picture of him like sat on his couch with this fake arm thing on, posing like a Calvin Klein ad.
“And I was like, ‘I’m not buying this. You’re a six-foot-something man and you fall out of your bed and you’ve hurt your arm and you now can’t do this?’ So I literally was like, ‘refund me for my ticket’. I couldn’t be arsed.”
That was the last time the pair spoke, and Julia-Ruth now accepts she was “love bombed’ by the groom.
“I guess that what Joe does, he love bombs you,” she shrugs. “He has never said he is sorry for the way he treated me, or anything. I don’t understand because we hadn’t even had a fight. But I guess maybe he needed to process everything that happened on the show.”
