My Situation Is ‘Different’ From Zanab

Not alike! While Love Is Blind’s Zanab Jaffrey and Deepti Vempati both turned downs their respective fiancé’s at the alter — that doesn’t mean the two women are exactly the same. 

“There have been a lot of comparisons,” Deepti, 31, told E! News in an interview published on Friday, November 18. “I think our situations are so different. Cole and Shake are different people. There’s a side of Cole that’s a little bit immature. He’s young, but, hopefully, he can see himself and it seems like he’s growing and learning from it, honestly.”

Throughout season 2 of the reality series, fans saw Abhishek ‘Shake’ Chatterjee struggle with not having a physical connection to Deepti. In several scenes, he referred to his fiancée as his “aunt.” While viewers didn’t see the pair discuss their issues with each other, Deepti told Us Weekly in February that they were “pretty transparent throughout our whole process” — and she “knew what she had to do” when it came to their impending nuptials. 

“No one should have doubts about me [on our wedding day] and I deserve the best,” she explained. “So it’s, like, if you’re not gonna be able to offer it for me, then there’s no chance I’m staying.”

After the Illinois native refused to marry the “Life Is Blurry” podcast host, 33, on the Love Is Blind season 2 finale, which aired in February, fans began to speculate that Zanab, 32, was looking to follow in Deepti’s footsteps by refusing to say “I do” to then-fiancé Cole Barnett.

In the episode, which dropped earlier this month, the flight attendant listed reasons similar to the Chicago resident for why she couldn’t marry the 27-year-old realtor, claiming he “disrespected” and “insulted” her while they were together. 

“You have single-handily shattered my self-confidence,” she told Cole while standing at the altar. “And I hate that you have that effect on me.”

When the season 3 reunion aired a week later, the Dallas resident doubled down on her original comments, saying it was Cole’s “saving grace” that Netflix didn’t include all of the tense moments between them. She then alleged that Kings Unversity alum pushed food away from her, tried to “control” what she ate and made “daily comments about [her] face and body [that] were not used.”

After he denied her claims, she added: “And that’s great because it really did protect you and you are now denying it and calling me a liar in front of all these people.”

However, despite her similarities to the Deepti, Zanab recently took to social media to clarify that their respective weddings were actually filmed only a week apart — which means she was unaware of what unfolded at the data analyst’s wedding. 

The Bradley University alum, for her part, told E! on Friday that she has been in touch with Zanab since season 3 aired — but is giving the flight attendant a little room to breathe. 

“I just want to give her some time to get through all of the things that she’s getting through without us bombarding her with messages,” she shared.