Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Ultimatum: Queer Love finale and reunion.
The ultimate plot twist.
The Ultimatum: Queer Love finale on June 7 saw a shocking four of the five original couples get engaged. However, that wasn't enough to keep their love going. The reunion revealed that two of the pairs had split, leaving only Sam Mark and Aussie Chau, as well as Lexi Goldberg and Rae Cheung-Sutton, remaining.
But the final seconds of the reunion threw fans for a loop, as a black screen announced that Lexi and Rae had also ended things not long after filming the reunion, where they had spoken about planning their wedding.
Just one day after the episodes aired, Lexi officially debuted her new relationship with photographer Kristin "Zanc" Zancanelli. "Never felt more alive than with you," the 25-year-old told her partner in a June 8 TikTok for their "hard launch."
So, how did the new romance come to be? "Back during one of the hardest months of my life, I let my best friend do a photoshoot of me wearing my reunion dress," she recalled on Instagram that same day. "It's so incredibly amazing to see the smile that this woman put on my face even as a friend in some of my darkest moments. I feel overwhelmed by how I see myself through her lens, how clearly happy she made me."
She continued, "Flash forward to today, this woman has taken absolutely every inch of space my heart has to give. She's made me more comfortable in my own skin, in my own body, in my own sexuality, in whatever I want to wear. I feel every day the way I look in this picture: happy."
The model admits that life has been "complicated and messy" for her, but she's now excited to go public with their love. As she put it, "I hope every one of you gets to experience the love I do every single day." (See the duo here.)
And while Zanc didn't appear on the Netflix show, she feels like she walked away victorious, responding "BIG WINS OVER HERE" to one fan on TikTok June 8.
As for how Rae is doing post-split? She's also cracking jokes on TikTok, where she noted it was a "wiiiild dating journey." On June 7, Rae posted a video lip-syncing to the audio, "Damn, man, I thought I found the one. Now I gotta have a grand re-re-re-opening to the street."
The Ultimatum fans may be curious about the reasons behind the breakup, but as Rae told Netflix's Tudum, the former couple have agreed not to discuss it publicly. "You can forgive and forget, but things still bubble up and you deal with them as they come," she simply noted. "People make mistakes and you kind of have to revisit those sometimes."
Keep reading to find out where the other Ultimatum: Queer Love couples stand now.
Despite Yoly falling in love with Xander during their three weeks together, Mal never wavered in their commitment.
"It's always been you," Mal told Yoly, before getting down on one knee. "Will you do life with me? Will you marry me?" After a brief pause, Yoly said yes, asking, "What took you so long?"
Still, Yoly had doubts that she made the right choice. "If Xander were to fight for me," she admitted, "I don't know what I would say."
While Yoly and Mal left the experiment engaged, Mal revealed they were "happily broken up" during the reunion, though they did clash over the exact timeline of their breakup.
"My fear was that as soon as the cameras stopped filming, we were going to go back to our ways that I know of," Yoly explained. "That happened, we spent some time apart. During that time apart, she said, 'This isn't going to work out.' I didn't fight back."
After watching the show and seeing Yoly's interactions with Xander, Mal said she now views their relationship through a completely different lens. "You feel like a dangerous stranger to me," Mal said. "I had your back so hard and all you did was make a complete fool out of me."
Xander and Vanessa chose to end their four-year relationship after Xander developed feelings for Yoly during their trial marriage.
"I wish I could give you the world," Xander told Vanessa. "I thought I was going to be able to. You deserve a lot more than I can offer you right now."
While they both talked about possible rekindling things in the future, Vanessa revealed during the reunion that they have not been in communication since the experience ended.
After Yoly's engagement to Mal and Xander's breakup with Vanessa, the duo had an emotional conversation where they expressed their love for one another.
"I don't want to let you go," Yoly told Xander. "This isn't a matter of not loving you. It's not from lack of love."
And, it turns out, their feelings didn't go away as they revealed during the reunion they tried to rekindle their romance after Yoly's engagement ended.
"We stayed in communication some," Xander shared, "and we saw each other while we were at Coachella." The pair denied anything physical happening during their time at the music festival, but later admitted they were making plans for Yoly to visit Xander in Hawaii. "I had a great time with Xander," Yoly explained. "I was hoping to reconnect and try in any way possible."
Ultimately, they went their separate ways.
"We were in each other's journey for a little bit, but now we're back to doing our own stuff," Xander said. "I feel like I really needed to commit to myself. And figure out how to change the things I wanted to so I could show up better for myself and any partner that I had.
Learning Rae was physically intimate with Vanessa during their trial marriage, devastated Lexi. But the couple of three years was able to come back together and both proposed to each other in the finale. They then revealed they were moving to Philadelphia together after Rae got a new job.
During the reunion, the pair confirmed that they are still engaged.
"The last year has been amazing," Lexi said. "Proposal, vacations, we moved back to California a few months ago. It wholeheartedly has been the best year of my life."
Lexi and Rae were so happy, in fact, that Lexi said she would get married at the reunion if Rae would let her. "I am actually an ordained minister," host JoAnna Garcia Swisher offered, before Lexi revealed they already have a wedding date.
But a title card that aired after the episode ended offered a shocking update: "Shortly after filming the reunion, Lexi and Rae chose to end their relationship. The wedding has been called off."
"We're crazy," Mildred told Tiff in the finale after they got engaged. "But we're crazy together." Cut to the reunion and Mildred's tune was wildly different: "We're no longer on speaking terms."
So what happened?
They moved in together after their engagement, but immediately reverted back to their old ways. "There were no plans for the future" Mildred said. "We could never talk about a wedding. There were so many problems."
But, when Mildred described leaving Tiff as "one of the hardest decisions that I ever made ever," Tiff fired back that they were the one to end their engagement. "I just feel like we had an overall unhealthy relationship that was trying our best," Tiff shared.
Mildred then revealed she was arrested after throwing a pet gate at Tiff, who called the police. "They took my engagement ring off and I never put it back on," she said. "I am not proud of what I did, but there was a lot of fighting."
After getting into a heated argument, Tiff walked off the set and chose not to return.
After initially presenting a baffled Sam with a heart-shaped stone, Aussie pulled out a very different kind of rock and proposed.
During the reunion, the couple confirmed they are still engaged, but aren't rushing the wedding planning process.
"We're kind of waiting," Sam sad. "It was like, 'How do we explain this to people?' It's just so awkward."