Exclusive Interview
’90 Day Fiancé’s Sarper & Shekinah Reveal Their Future With the Franchise After Season 11 Tell All
While Sarper and Shekinah Güven did not arrive at the 90 Day Fiancé Season 11 Tell All together, the fan-favorite couple left hand-in-hand. Following the Tell All, Swooon caught up with the couple to discuss their future plans and where they stand with their Season 11 castmates.
According to Sarper, everything has been going better in their lives since the Tell All. Sarper shared, “I’m doing stand-up comedy, and I am progressing so quickly, and in one month, I will come to the level that I was dreaming of, almost a professional level. Then I will start an American tour.” He added, “I’m a man of mission right now.”
Shekinah, who is frequently the source of his jokes, praised her husband’s budding stand-up career. She told Swooon, “I’m proud of him. It’s always about me, but luckily, I’m a good sport. I’m just rolling with the punches, laughing along.” Outside of stand-up, the couple has been spending time with Shekinah’s daughter, Sofie, who is currently on summer break from school. Shekinah also confessed that “trying to get past this whirlwind of post-Tell All stuff going around right now.” Or, as Sarper put it, “Post-Tell All Syndrome.”
For the couple, one of the most positive moments during the Tell All was when Sarper surprised Shekinah with a wedding ring on stage. When asked why he decided to give Shekinah the ring at the Tell All, Sarper revealed, “I promised her, because she always ate my brain: wedding band, wedding ring, wedding band. “Normally, in Turkey, we buy [one ring]. But here, there are a lot of rituals. I said, ‘Okay, I will buy you one day.’ I started to work here. I started to make money. And she always was saying that I’m not keeping my promises. [The Tell All] was a great place to show that I’m keeping my promises in front of everyone.”
“It was such a shock,” Shekinah recalled. “I was so excited. I was just overwhelmed. I didn’t expect it because he did already give me an engagement ring, so I really wanted the wedding band. I didn’t expect a whole new engagement ring and wedding band. So that was a big surprise.”
As for her original engagement ring, Shekinah told Swooon, “The original engagement ring that he gave me, I really loved. And he got that ring in Turkey; it was really special to me. It’s so special to me always, because that’s the ring he proposed to me with.” According to Shekinah, she needed a “safer” ring because “the diamond setting was just so high.” Describing the original engagement ring that Sarper had given her, she stated, “It projected off of my finger, and I kept cutting myself with it, which is weird. It was just a high, sharp setting, which is gorgeous but dangerous.”
Looking back at their wedding in bed, or “Bedding” as they called it, Shekinah revealed that they chose to get married in such a unique way because they spend so much of their time in bed. From starting the day in bed to ending the day back in the same place, the location felt natural. As Shekinah listed the activities they do in bed, Sarper was quick to comment, “Sex there.”
“We are a unique couple,” Sarper explained. “Whatever we do, there’s something not normal. I thought it would be affordable, but it was not, by the way. I’m underlining that part.” He continued, “It came out good. First, I thought, ‘Will it be cheesy, or something like in bed?’ Because, I mean, you saw me with a vest and bow tie only, something like Chippendales. But it didn’t come out like that.” Shekinah added, “[The bedding] was sexy, classy, elegant, and timeless.” Plus, Sarper couldn’t pass up the epic bed/wedding pun.
Leaving the Tell All, Shekinah shared that their next goal as a couple was going to therapy. “We’ve had a few sessions,” Shekinah shared. “We need more, for sure, but at least we started, you know? That was the biggest thing with Sarper, being resistant to it and finally agreeing to do it.” The couple also admitted that it was hard to find a therapist who was a good fit. “It’s almost like dating. You have to have a lot of first dates with therapists until you find the one that’s a good fit for you. And I feel like we found a good one; we just need to talk to him more often.”
“More than therapy,” Sarper told Swooon, “I think people start to learn each other. That’s the important thing in a relationship. We are still having arguments, but right now, we recover a lot more quickly and recover better from them.” On a personal level, Sarper revealed, “I always say my parents are married for 45 years, and they have fights every day, but they forget in 10 minutes. Then, ‘What are we eating for dinner?’ I just want to be like this. Because we are Scorpios, both of our characters are sharp, and we can get mad easily, but we have to forget it and keep going.”
As for their goal to move out of their apartment? Shekinah and Sarper are still working on it. “Our place is very small,” Shekinah commented. “I want a bigger place together, [one] that we find and make a home together.” Where that home will be is still up in the air. “Let’s be clear,” Sarper interjected. “Everyone knows that she wants to live in Miami. I’m not so close to that idea because of the weather. So humid.” In his perfect world, they’d be living in Turkey.
Having starred on two seasons of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way before making their debut on the franchise’s flagship show, Shekinah and Sarper are no strangers to 90 Day Fiancé‘s incredibly vocal online fanbase. “In the beginning,” Shekinah recalled, “People didn’t believe we were a real couple. I don’t know why. Originally, we wanted to share our love story with the world because we thought our story was so special and our love is so unique. We wanted to give people hope that they could find love.” Now that they’ve been featured on three seasons, Shekinah revealed, “I think slowly, they’ve started to come around and see that our love is real.”
As Sarper put it, “In the first two seasons that we [were] in, there was hate. They were in total hate, because I think people didn’t believe in us.” Since then, Sarper believes that fans of the show have seen their sincerity. “We are giving 100% sacrifices for this relationship, and they [have started] to respect us. Right now, everything has changed, and I’m happy to see that progress. Especially for [Shekinah]. Right now, people start to see her character, especially after this.”
The couple also revealed that while they are not actively planning on appearing in another season of 90 Day Fiancé, they would do anything for the fans who have been with them since day one of their relationship. “If they want to document us,” Sarper confessed. “We cannot say no to them.” As Shekinah put it, “We’ve involved so many people in our love story at this point, we owe it to them to let them know what’s happening next.”
We also received an inkling that a specific throuple won’t be involved in their relationship going forward. At least, that’s the message we took from Sarper’s careful answer to whether they keep in touch with any of the other cast members from Season 11: “We speak with all couples, only couples.”
90 Day Fiancé, Season 11, Streaming Now, HBO Max
