Love Is Blind’s Joe on Why He Ended Things With Madison, Reacts to Her Eating Disorder Revelation (Exclusive)

Love Is Blind season 9 star Joe Ferrucci is speaking out following his shocking split from ex-fiancée Madison Maidenberg, filling in what you didn’t see on TV during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly.

“My connection with Madison in the pods was great. There were a lot of butterflies. It was a very deep connection. We had a lot of laughs,” Joe, 29, began. “When you’re going into [the pods], there is a little hesitation, and then the more you go forward, you get bought in and it is a pressure cooker situation. The conversations you have in there are very deep and exceed what would be in a regular relationship just by timeline. The more it went on, I could see it working out.”

Fans saw the first cracks in their relationship, however, when Joe, who works in sales, and Madison, a UX/UI designer, made a comment about Madison’s body in Mexico. She has since revealed on the “Viall Files” podcast that she “developed an eating disorder” from a remark he made about normally dating “more petite women.”

“I did see that,” Joe said when asked about her revelation. “Obviously, kind of a horrible feeling on my end if that’s something that affected her long-term or for a little while after. It was a surprising comment. Madison’s always been very confident in her body image, but you never know how somebody’s really feeling inside. I didn’t mean it to affect her in that way. It’s not a good thing to hear.”

During the same trip, the twosome got into a drunk fight that showed more signs of trouble and left Madison in tears. Joe admitted to Us that he was using alcohol as “the worst coping mechanism” during the experiment. He has since scaled back on his consumption.

For the next batch of episodes, Joe and Madison appeared to be on the road to the altar, still working on their communication skills and from what the audience saw, only arguing over why she was so confident in their relationship.

“It seemed Madison was all in and what you would want in a person. I, on the other hand, had some concerns, nervous, scared, anxious. I never saw that coming from Madison,” Joe told Us. “I think it scared me seeing that as well, and I know she wanted to keep on with the experiment, go through, get as much as you can out of it, in the way of, ‘Is this my person?’ More time for discovering that. I think there was a certain breaking point for me where I couldn’t go on any longer.”

Joe hit that breaking point while tux shopping.

“I definitely crashed out. At that certain point, [I’m thinking], ‘Why am I going through these motions if I have in my head that, ultimately, I’m not going to be able to say yes on that wedding day?’” he recalled to Us. “It felt a little faulty on my part, and I could have handled it better. That’s the story of my experiment on TV. It just felt disingenuous on my part to even be there, if I didn’t think we had enough time to get there or if I knew this wasn’t my person.”

When asked if he had been feeling this way for a while, Joe replied, “In simple terms, I had these emotions that I was aware of, and I was trying to mask them with other things. [I was trying] not to be in the moment and feel what I was feeling, because it is super emotional, high pressure, anxiety ridden, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. The light bulb definitely came up, like, ‘Why am I still here?’”

As he exited the tux shop and headed to his car with no explanation, Netflix set the scene to “Manchild’ by Sabrina Carpenter. “That’s kind of funny,” he admitted to Us. “You have to laugh at yourself.”

The tone shifted quickly in the next episode when Joe informed Madison that he wanted to end things.

“In the pods and in my mind, [we were a] great fit. I think you learn a lot about a person outside [of the pods] where you can see how they communicate. You can see how they move, facial expressions, other conversations that definitely are not filmed — maybe something you don’t want on camera — and ultimately, it wasn’t a fit,” he said. “She was not my person, and I think that’s OK. We’re just two very, very different human beings.”

During their split, Madison called it “interesting” that Joe made the decision not long after they met up with the remaining “singles” from the experiment. “There’s nobody else that I could see a future with or marriage with on the show,” he told Us.

Joe acknowledged that he and Madison had “a strong, physical connection,” confessing, “I think that and fighting were the only two things we did.”

He added, “It is not the foundation for a marriage. It was hard. There’s no common ground ever. I’m to blame for my part in that. I can say that wholeheartedly, and I think somebody else would be a great match for her.”

Does he wish he ended things sooner? “I think I went as far as I needed to,” he noted.

As for what he would do differently, he’s quick to say “not drank as much.”

“I would have sat in the moment, felt what I was feeling, and not try to run away from some of the emotions that were eating me alive,” he concluded.

The season finale of Love Is Blind starts streaming on Netflix Wednesday, October 22.