‘Love is Blind’s’ Cole Barnett became a villain — and worldwide heartthrob
After being villainized for allegedly body-shaming his would-be fiancée on TV, he’s now the world’s most wanted man — by thirsty women.
Cole Barnett appeared on the Netflix reality dating series “Love Is Blind” in Season 3 — where couples date via walled-off pods and don’t see each other until after they’re engaged.
His betrothed, flight attendant Zanab Jaffrey, left him at the altar, blindsided.
On the show’s reunion episode, which aired a month later in November, Barnett, 28, was called out by his ex for questioning her for eating a pair of clementine oranges.
“Are you about to eat two of those?” he asked in the clip, which was shown at the end of the episode.
“Maybe, that’s a serving; you okay with that?” she replied.
“You better save your appetite,” he continued.
Fat-shamer or not, his fans ate it up — sending his number of Instagram followers skyrocketing to half a million after the infamous scene premiered on Nov. 9.
“There’s a lot of girls that reach out. They’re like, ‘I want to marry you. I’m your wife, come to Brazil,’” he told The Post after “LIB” debuted Season 3’s “After the Altar” episodes on Feb. 10.
“I get DMs all the time like, ‘I know this sounds crazy. … but I know we are meant to be.’”
On the November episode, Jaffrey, 33, revealed that she felt Barnett tried to control her diet.
“I stopped eating,” she said. “I was eating a banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter just so I wouldn’t pass out on the long days we were filming.”
Barnett replied, “That’s hilarious. I never once cared about what you ate.”
Messages of support have come in staggering amounts.
“A lot of people are like, ‘You were done so dirty … Don’t let this get you down,’” he said.
The Fort Worth, Texas native, who only had around 360 Instagram followers prior to his October 2022 debut on the series, was discovered on the social media platform by the show’s production company.
“I had a message request from them … I thought it was a scam,” the realtor recalled. “So I literally responded and I was like, ‘This sounds like a scam. Tell me more.’”
Barnett still isn’t sure why he was chosen for the series — which earned the No. 8 spot in the top original streaming series of 2022 according to Nielsen — being that he had an “unimpressive” Instagram account with just seven posts.
“I think they just look for like guys around my age in the whole area and send a ton of messages to people who maybe look like me,” he said.
The still-single reality star has yet to go on a date with any of the women who have reached out, and is only on one dating app, Hinge, where he went out with someone who was unaware of his reality star status.
“The girl did not know that I was on the show,” he said. “She found out because … people were coming up to me … like, ‘Cole, we love you … Just so you know you did nothing wrong.’ And she was like, ‘What are they talking about?’”
However, he may not be a bachelor for long — if he decides to travel to Italy to visit one “very persistent” admirer from there.
“She’s like, ‘I am your wife. When are you coming to Italy? I promise I will be here. It’s beautiful. Look at the beach. You could be in paradise. Marry me.’”
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