Warning: Spoilers from “Love Is Blind” Season Six below.
"Love Is Blind" Season Six is stirring up debate about when, and how, a person should disclose they are a parent during the dating process.
But Jessica “Jess” Vestal, a contestant on the Charlotte, North Carolina-based season, tells TODAY.com she has no regrets about how she handled being a single mom on "Love Is Blind."
Vestal starts the season “nervous” to tell the men she has a daughter, she says on the show. The 29-year-old executive assistant tells hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey her plan to let guys get to know her as an individual before learning she's a mom.
Viewers watch that play out through her connection with Jimmy Presnell, 28. After their first chat, she returns to the women’s lounge and gushes about their connection, referring to him as “Jimmy with the juice.”
Their progression halts halfway through the episode when Jess opens up about having a 10-year-old daughter named Autumn. Jimmy, who is also getting to know contestant Chelsea Blackwell, reacts by asking why Jess didn’t share that information with him earlier.
Jimmy later says motherhood isn't a “deal-breaker” for him. Online, viewers sharer their suspicions that it was, in fact, a deal-breaker.
She falls for him, but Jimmy wavers in his feelings. Jess confronts him about his lack of “directness” in their relationship in Episode Four and he reveals he wants to pursue his connection with Chelsea.
“I know that you’re already an incredible mother. You’re going to be an amazing wife for someone else,” he says. “At this point, I love someone else.”
She tearfully calls him out for leading her on and “ruining” the opportunity for her.
Even though the experiment didn’t end in an engagement, Jess tells TODAY.com she wouldn’t change the decisions she made. She says she stands by waiting to open up about being a mom.
“I have no regrets,” she says. “I really wanted to, like I said (on the show), give someone the opportunity to get to know me first and not lead with the fact that I’m a mother. Because although that is the most important part of who I am, it doesn’t define me.”
She adds, “I felt like I needed to give the men time and space to get to know other things about me before bringing that into the conversation.”
After leaving the pods, Jess returned to Charlotte, North Carolina, and reunited with Autumn.
In her chat with TODAY.com, she describes seeing her daughter for the time after filming “Love Is Blind.”
“It was amazing,” she recalls. “Like, I’ve never been away from her for that long, even though I wasn’t even on the show for as long as I had originally anticipated. I’d never taken a vacation away from her.”
She says it was a moment of “euphoria” when they reunited and embraced. “I think we hugged for like 10 minutes straight and then we were just attached at the hip for like the next couple of weeks. Actually, we still are. We haven’t recovered,” she jokes, laughing.
“I was so happy to see her,” she says.
With the release of Season Six, Autumn will now have an opportunity to see what her mom was up to while she was away. Jess confirms that she will let her daughter watch some of the show “within reason.”
“As far as my story goes, I plan to share all of it with her,” Jess says.
Prior to going on “Love Is Blind,” the executive assistant says she showed Autumn clips of Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton’s love story from Season One so that her daughter was familiar with the show.
"She was happy to see me, but disappointed that the story didn’t unfold the way we had planned. But we both have complete peace of mind knowing it happened the way it was supposed to.”
Jess shares her daughter's reaction to her return from "Love Is Blind"
She says she wanted to give Autumn “an idea of what I was going into because if she hadn’t been comfortable with the experience, I wouldn’t have gone.”
“I hadn’t really planned for an alternate reality outside of coming back engaged,” Jess continues. “So she was happy to see me, but disappointed that the story didn’t unfold the way we had planned. But we both have complete peace of mind knowing it happened the way it was supposed to.”
A teaser halfway through the season confirmed that Jess would make an appearance in a future episode. Her much-anticipated return comes at the end of Episode 10 during the Season Six cast party.
Jess and Jimmy sit by a lake and unpack their breakup and his engagement to Chelsea in a private conversation. The executive assistant also reveals to Jimmy that she wept in the pods after hearing that he was in love with Chelsea.
“I want you to be good to her,” Jess tells him.
The 29-year-old then accepts Jimmy's apology for how he handled the situation.
Speaking to TODAY.com, Jess says she was glad she had the conversation with Jimmy, but she had already found closure before they reunited.
"I felt like I had closure during our last conversation in the pods, kind of when I spoke my piece," she shares. She recalls being excited to catch up with some of her friends from the pods at the party, but says she didn't feel like she needed to say anything else to Jimmy.
"It was more so for him, I guess. Time to speak his piece, because I don't know if I fully gave him that opportunity to (in the pods)," she continues.
She reveals that she spoke to Chelsea at the party, too, in an unaired moment.
"Oh gosh, I wish that would have been shown," Jess says. "I actually asked Chelsea beforehand if she was OK with he and I speaking because I wanted to do everything out of love and respect to her. I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable but surprisingly, as far as I know, it wasn't uncomfortable for any of us."
It seems fans will not get to see Jess again on the show until her likely appearance at the reunion on March 13. Based on their social media reactions, it appears that there is now tension between her and Jimmy.
When the official "Love Is Blind" Instagram account posted a clip of Jess calling Jimmy out in the pods and predicting he would need an EpiPen after seeing her in real life, he left a snarky reply.
"EpiPen ✅ Engagement Ring ❌," he wrote in the comments.
Jess responded, "My brother in Christ.. this is bold of you."
Hopefully the two reveal what soured their relationship at the reunion.