Exclusive Interview
‘Match Me Abroad’: Monica Durazo Reveals Major Life Change After Season 2 Finale
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Match Me Abroad Season 2 Episode 13.]
Heading into the Match Me Abroad Season 2 finale, Swooon caught up with international dater Monica Durazo to discuss the shocking conclusion of her love triangle with Bernardo and Bruno, and break down everything she has learned from her experience on the show.
This season on Match Me Abroad, Monica met not one but two local hunks who were ready for a commitment. After a season of exploring both options, Monica’s matchmaker, Luiza, had her choose which man she wanted to be with while they were both in the room with her. Awkward! While Monica originally chose Bruno, she quickly realized that she had led with her mind and not her heart, leading her to split from Bruno and try to win Bernardo during the penultimate episode.
As viewers eagerly await the final verdict on Monica’s relationship with bad boy Bernardo, which will come to light during the Match Me Abroad Season 2 finale on Sunday, September 21, we sat down with Monica to find out how her first reality TV experience changed her life — for better or worse.
Looking at her real-life love-triangle, Monica told Swooon, “I was put in an impossible decision, and I did what I thought was best for me.” However, Monica did make it clear that a lot of her story with both guys happened off-camera. She shared, “You only see such small snippets of what actually happened. There were also days off, and really, on those days off, I got to spend some off-camera time with these guys. Those are just things that only we know, right? Because there’s no one else really to see it.” She added, “I wish [viewers] knew that, like, I spent more time than it appears with these guys. I got to know them extremely well, and they’re both phenomenal people.”
Regardless of the public perception surrounding her choice to pursue Bernardo over Bruno, Monica told Swooon, “I’m not living this life for what everyone else is going to think about me. You know, I live this life for what I think about myself, and what I think about myself is [that] I made the right choice. Bernardo is a tremendous, fantastic human being, and I’m glad I followed my heart.”
Now that Match Me Abroad is behind her, Monica describes herself as an “entirely different person” than who she was before the show. “I went running with my friends yesterday, and we were talking about who I was prior to Brazil to who I am today. Before I left for Brazil, I’m not gonna lie to you, I think I was a little bit of a b****.” Clarifying, she revealed to Swooon, “I just didn’t date anybody. I was a little bit judgy. I wouldn’t date someone if they didn’t make a certain amount of money, if they were at my same level or below. I never got to know any of these potential people here in the States, because I was judging them before even meeting them.”
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However, everything changed when she went to Brazil. She recalled, “I meet this awesome personal trainer [Bernardo], and I meet this awesome guy who works for his mom [Bruno], and we have so much fun, and we go dancing, and we play footvolley, and we dance in a living room. We do these things that I’m just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I could have been doing this kind of stuff with people all along, and I wasn’t doing it.’ Now I’m in my 40s, and I’m barely starting to do that again; that’s exactly what this journey taught me.”
She continued, “I came home from Brazil, and I was a different human being. I’ve lived in my neighborhood for many, many years, and I’d never even spoken to my neighbors. I didn’t know who they were. I was just very stuck up. Didn’t talk to them.” Now that she’s turned a new leaf, she was proud to say, “My neighbors are now my best friends. We hang out all the time. We had the best summer of our lives.”
As for the friends she had before she left for Brazil, she shared, “My friends’ lives have been impacted because I changed. Everyone’s life around me has been impacted because I’ve opened up and changed, and I have all these new memories and new friends that I never would have had before. So I can say this experience made me such a better person, and it was exactly what I needed.”
Although she confessed that you may not have seen this new side of her on the show because she was crying all the time. “I think it was because I was really transforming as a person,” she admitted. “I was changing, and I could feel it, and it was a weight that was starting to get lifted off, but then it was also the weight of the guys as well. There was just so much transformation happening all at once that it just came out in tears. But trust me, I had the best time of my life. I will always love Brazil.”
Of course, we can’t all have a transformative experience starring on a reality romance show filmed in Brazil. However, Monica was able to share some advice for anyone looking to evolve their way of life. She suggested, “Just do it. Don’t worry about what other people are going to say or think. It’s your life — one life — and at the end of my life, I will be so happy that I took that chance, and I took that risk, and I did what very few people are willing to do: be vulnerable in front of billions of people.” She continued, “There’s so much life and love to live. Go for it. Give it all you have. Don’t look back.”
Smiling, Monica revealed that she has been watching the season as it premieres with her daughter, Alyssa. “We laugh. She laughs at me. I laugh at me. It’s the most joyous, fun experience when you make it that way. So just go for it. Just go for it. Have fun. That’s my advice.”
For a full update on who’s still together from Match Me Abroad Season 2, click here.
Match Me Abroad, Season 2 Finale, Sunday, September 21 at 10/9c, TLC
