Exclusive Interview

‘Love Is Blind’: Would Kevan Have Proposed to Keya? His Take on the Love Triangle

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Love Is Blind Season 10, Episodes 1-6.]

Kevan Jones wasn’t the first person to find himself in a Love Is Blind love triangle, and he won’t be the last. The Season 1o cast member found connections with Keya Kellum and Tyler Lainer in the pods. Over the first four episodes, Kevan couldn’t decide between the two women. Ultimately, they made the decision for him. Tyler left the show before the experiment was over, ghosting Kevan after they officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. That same day, Keya chose herself and broke things off with Kevan.

Shortly after Season 10’s premiere, Kevan spoke with Swooon about the love triangle drama, which he said is pretty accurate to how it played out in real-life. “I feel like we were able to have very strong connections for different reasons,” he said. “It was surreal. I was not going into that expecting that to happen at all, and it really put me in the wringer towards the end, to where I just looked confused and stumbled on my words and s**t. But it was definitely an interesting experience to really have to sit there and be in tune with not only their feelings, but how you’re feeling as well.”

Kevan felt just as deeply for Tyler as he did for Keya. He was drawn to Tyler’s energy from the get-go. “I talk about going, ‘Hey, I want to meet my best friend.’ She really was connected. Like, ‘Wow, I feel like I’ve known you for forever,'” he reflected. “It was amazing just to have that instant chemistry. I really love that, and I love everything she stood for. I love how strong and powerful she was with what she wanted. She wasn’t playing no game… It’s exactly what I needed.”

With Keya, Kevan really bonded with her about a week into the experiment, once they started to talk more in depth about their futures and what they’ve overcome in their lives. He recalled one moment that stood out to him: He felt off-kilter when he forgot to bring his watch to the pods. Keya later gave him one as a gift. “I tell people all the time, I cried in the pods. I’m not a crier. Like, that was the last time I cried was in that pod,” Kevan said. “It just blew my mind. I’m like, there’s no way. That’s almost like some faith, destiny type stuff. Just between that and connecting, it jacked me up, I’ll be honest.”

Then, the eve of engagement day arrived. “[It] was one of the craziest days of my life, because I was the only person who was down so two women at that point, and each one of our dates were four hours. So I literally went from a four-hour date with Keya directly to a four-hour date with Tyler,” he remembered. “And the reason why it looked that way is because I really didn’t have another opportunity to tell Keya that we were going official.”

During that date with Tyler, she told Kevan that he needed to make a decision between her and Keya. Kevan told Swooon, “For what she needed from me, that was fair. She told me, flat out, ‘I’m not going to engagement day with wondering who you’re picking. I need to know right now.’ and that was fair. For her and what she needed, that reassurance and security, because she’s such an awesome woman, I owed [her] that.”

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Would he have gone official with Tyler had she not told him to decide? “I feel that, at that point, there were a couple of things that I did want to still talk through, but I was okay with moving forward because she was so amazing, and my heart was filled with the love and joy she had provided me in that moment. So I was totally fine with that and understood that,” Kevan replied.

He added that he was still being pulled in different directions, too. “It was a wrestling match with also not wanting to let any of them down and be the right man for them, not hurt anybody’s feelings because I have a big f**king heart,” he explained. “Then also, really just making sure that I was the man that I needed to be in that moment for them, just like wrestling with inner insecurities myself of like, ‘S**t, man,  these women have it put together… And so, just all those feelings just wrestled out at the same time, and just all got displayed within a whole 24-hour period.”

Had she not left, Kevan thinks he would have told Tyler that he loved her. During the show, he said he didn’t blame her for leaving, and he stands by that a year after filming. “I didn’t give her the reassurance that she needed to show up that day,” he told Swooon. “That’s 1,000% on me, and she didn’t deserve that. She did not deserve to have that date end like that to where she didn’t know what I was going to do.”

When he later told Keya that she wasn’t his second choice — after Tyler had ghosted him — Kevan was trying to “appreciate everything she had shown [him] through this whole process.” He continued, “And I’m not just going to go run back to you just because she didn’t show up. So I just wanted her to know that’s where I came from. Because they’re both phenomenal… I didn’t want it to happen that way and make her feel that way.”

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He wasn’t planning on asking Keya to marry him at that moment. If Keya hadn’t broken up with him, Kevan would have ended things himself. “Because I just feel like it wouldn’t have been fair to her to just have [an engagement] happen in that way. She didn’t deserve that,” he noted.

In their final conversation in the pods, Keya said she felt Kevan wasn’t ready for marriage, which we asked for Kevan’s take on. “There was things that were brought to light to me that I needed to work on to be a wonderful and amazing husband. In that moment, I feel like I can be a great husband, and I was ready for marriage, but at the same time, I still was shown things that I can improve on, and Keya wasn’t going to wait for me to work on those things.”

“I wasn’t the husband that she needed, and she was 1,000% absolutely right,” he continued. “She clocked this, she clocked that on me, and she let me know. So I agree with that wholeheartedly. She’s an amazing woman.”

Love Is Blind, Season 10, Episodes 1-6, Streaming Now, Netflix

Love Is Blind, Season 10, Episodes 7-9, February 18, Netflix

Love Is Blind, Season 10, Episodes 10-11, February 25, Netflix

Love Is Blind, Season 10, Episode 12, March 4, Netflix