Where Is Cole Today After Love Is Blind?

Cole Barnett and Zanab Jaffrey’s Love Is Blind wedding didn’t end in a marriage, but it did end in one of the season’s most memorable moments. At the altar, Zanab listed a few reasons why she wouldn’t be going through with their relationship. “You have disrespected me, you have insulted me, you have critiqued me, and for what it is worth, you have singlehandedly shattered my self-confidence,” she told him during the show’s Nov. 9 finale.

Today, Cole tells Bustle that seeing the moment “still hurts” more than a year after filming. “I totally understand where she's coming from now ... [but it] feels like I was kind of the person who should have known where she was at, and yet felt like the only one who didn’t know because everyone there did and they were cheering for it.” (During the Love Is Blind reunion, however, Zanab said no one knew what she was going to say at the altar.)

But at the same time, he “100%” understands Zanab’s decision, he says. “I was just blinded by the pain,” he adds. “I was feeling this mass confusion. But yes, now. Absolutely.” He also says he would have “been a lot more careful with [his] words” in hindsight. During the reunion, Zanab referenced one such moment where she felt hurt in an interaction with Cole — in which he questioned her decision to have two Cuties oranges and suggested she “save [her] appetite.”

So, is Cole still single today after his wedding with Zanab didn’t go to plan? During the reunion, Zanab claimed that Cole said he got another woman’s number at his bachelor party and tried to kiss her. However, Cole said that “literally never happened.” Beyond that, his Instagram doesn’t contain clues about any potential relationship after his time on Love Is Blind.

But he has been busy in his professional life in the year-plus since. “[I’ve been] working in real estate representing clients, buying and selling some houses. I flip houses as well,” he says. “But I’ve recently stopped flipping a little bit just to spend more time with clients as the market’s shifted some.”

Cole has also spent some time reflecting on his journey via social media — like in one recent TikTok, where he acknowledged that his tendency to “say exactly what [he’s] thinking” might be a bad habit, using Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” audio trend.

On his Nov. 17 Instagram story, Cole revealed he was in “some much-needed therapy.”

“It’s not, like, there’s some grand thing you need to go learn necessarily ... sometimes, like, as a guy, you just don’t ever talk about emotions and feelings,” he said. “You never do. And so, just sitting with someone and even talking about those things, in and of itself, is freeing and liberating.”