During her brief time on "Love Is Blind" Season Four, Irina Solomonova, a 26-year-old business owner, falls in and out of love with Zack Goytowski, a 31-year-old lawyer.
She also finds herself in the middle of a love triangle with her friend Micah Lussier, a 27-year-old marketing manager, who gets engaged to 29-year-old environmental scientist Paul Peden.
During her breakup with Zack, Irina reveals that she'd been harboring feelings for Paul, especially after seeing him in real life.
Speaking to TODAY.com, Irina sets the record straight. “I had absolutely no intention of pursuing anything with Paul,” she says.
When Irina and Paul meet for the first time in-person, they share a conversation in the pool about Russian food. At the end of their talk, she asks him to “dab her up.”
"I might have had a moment where I had a lot of alcohol, I might have been a little flirty, but I had no intention of breaking anything off with them," Irina explains.
Irina says meeting Paul was a reminder that she didn't feel the same spark for her fiancé, Zack.
"Meeting Paul just helped me realize what I felt like I had so naturally when I met Paul, I was trying so hard to have with Zack and I didn't," she says.
She says this helped hasten her decision to break up with Zack.
"So, I feel like that just was kind of like a moment where I was like, 'Hey I don't want to marry somebody that I'm trying to, force this connection with," she says.
Irina says her attraction for Paul didn't impact her bond with Micah. “Micah was my best friend and she still is," she says.
Micah tells TODAY.com that she and Irina grew closer because of the show.
"Sometimes friendships need these hurdles in order to grow and I think that her and I both grew a lot on the show," Micah says. "Sometimes that's all you need is a friend to grow with and that's hopefully something we can do in the future."
Irina wants viewers to know her actions were always genuine and never malicious.
"I think I was my genuine true self," she says. "There were definitely moments where I wasn't at my best self."
