Cole Barnett Speaks Out On Being 'Attacked' At 'Love Is Blind' Season 3 Reunion

Realtor Cole Barnett is speaking out about his relationship with Zanab Jaffrey, which was heavily featured during season 3 of the hit Netflix reality show, "Love Is Blind."

At the reunion special and subsequent interviews, Zanab claimed that she suffered an eating disorder while filming the show, due to Cole's repeated comments about her appearance. Cole, on his part, denied several of her allegations and apologized for anything that he said that would have "singlehandedly shattered her self-confidence," which is what Zanab accused him of when she turned him down at the altar.

Fans have been taking sides between Zanab and Cole ever since the show aired, with Cole later admitting that he "didn't expect" fan's reaction to the show "to be the way that it is."

Cole admitted that he didn't expect the media attention surrounding his appearance on the show. "But it is what it is: you have a lot of people who hate you, and you have a lot of people who love you," he told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview.

"I have to try harder to be away from my phone more because you kind of just want to sit around and read everything online," Cole added. "But I've done my best to disconnect from what the internet is doing and just still be my same self in my life."

Cole revealed that the reunion took place a year and a half after filming. He described the reunion as "rough" and "horrible," adding that he felt blindsided by Zanab's accusations of body shaming.

"That's the very first time I'd ever heard about her eating disorder," Cole said of the reunion. "I had no clue, not during our relationship, not since I had seen her even after the show. She hadn't mentioned that to me."

He also said that none of the other season 3 cast members had mentioned it, even though Cole said the group often went out to bars and restaurants together within a month or two before the reunion.

"It's just really difficult to work with people who will only say things to your face whenever there's cameras around, and whenever there's not cameras around and y'all are together no one's saying things to my face," Cole said, adding that he sat on a plane with Alexa's husband, Brennon, on a flight from Dallas to LA to film the reunion.

Although Alexa called Cole "deceitful" at the reunion, Cole said Brennon never mentioned anything about Zanab's allegations to him.

"I don't even know how to deal with this if no one is willing to actually speak to me about anything, but everything's behind my back, or it will be in my face but only when there's cameras around," Cole said.

"It doesn't help that I'm being told one thing by people when there's not cameras around, and then I'm hearing about the way that people feel about me through other people instead of directly from them," he continued. "If someone has something to say to me, I wish they would just say it to my face. They did say it to my face at the reunion, but we had a lot of interactions before then and no one just wanted to say it to me."

The reunion also didn't go as Cole expected. He thought that everyone wanted to get together to talk about the experience of filming the show, but, in Cole's words, "it seemed like everyone really wanted to come and just lowlight everything. The girls all stuck together, banded together, and I guess they were proud of it."

"I just think the reunion was very difficult because it seemed like the girls were on a very different page than the guys," he added. "The girls just stood up for themselves a lot and attacked in some ways."

As for his relationship with Zanab, he said that the two are "not really on talking terms."

"I don't think we're ever going to be together again or anything like that, but I'd love to at least be able to be friends with her and talk to her and work through any of the pain that I've caused her," he continued. "I'm in a place where I want to do my best with however I can make things right with her."

"It's not to say that we're ever going to have a romantic relationship again because she's obviously pretty much done with me, but with our lives being on display for everyone to watch and our relationship being on display, I'd like to at least have an open line of communication with her," he added. "She reached out and asked for all the photos and videos I had of us, and I sent those to her. Then from there, she just won't really talk. Any message I send, she just likes it and then leaves it."

Season 3 of "Love Is Blind" is currently available to stream on Netflix. No release date has been announced for season 4, which has reportedly already finished filming.