- As she revealed on "Love Is Blind: After the Altar," Nancy Rodriguez is dating again.
- She explained why she's intentionally using the Latine dating app Chispa to do so.
"Love Is Blind" star Nancy Rodriguez told Insider her family's reaction to her ex-fiancé Bartise Bowden ending their relationship at the altar brought them "closer together."
"In that moment I really wanted to figure out WTF, what just happened," Nancy said. Upon finally watching the series herself, she felt "thankful" that her mother Erendira Rodriguez and brother Steve Rodriguez were there to "have my back."
At Bartise and Nancy's wedding in season three, viewers saw her family passionately lash out when Bartise said "I do not" to Nancy as she stood in her white dress and full makeup, expecting to start the rest of her life with a husband that day.
As the former couple left to discuss Bartise's sudden decision, Steve and his mom raged inside the venue. Erendira eventually told Nancy that Bartise was "not ready" to "receive" her for the woman she was.
Her family's emotional outburst, while understandable, was uncomfortable to watch. But Nancy said that in the end, it had a positive effect on everyone.
"I think, of anything, it really brought me and my family closer together," she said.
Nancy admitted that before "Love Is Blind," she didn't share much about her personal life before making decisions. But in the "Love Is Blind: After The Altar" episodes, viewers see her take her family's advice about her future with Bartise to heart.
In the first episode, she confessed that she was still close friends with Bartise, an update she initially hid from her family. But after revealing the news to Erendira, her mother convinced her that she was "too nice" and compared Bartise to a poop emoji. "I would never be friends with him," Erendira said.
"He has enough friends," said Steve during the conversation. "There's no need for you to be sacrificing your peace, your personal life...You've tried. You gave it your all." He urged Nancy to let Bartise "be someone else's problem."
So, at her castmate Alexa Lemieux's birthday party, she had a difficult conversation with Bartise and told him they couldn't be friends.
Nancy's dating again and spoke with Insider as part of a partnership with Chispa, the Latine dating app she's using to try and find a man who shares and understands her culture more than Bartise did.
"It's now time to just really make intentional moves on dating," she said.
According to Nancy, using a platform whose mission is to connect Latine singles, "Really eliminates that concern of, 'Will they understand why my family is so passionate?' Or, "Have they seen this show and will they get why my mom and my brother act the way they did?'"
"There is nothing sexier than a little Spanglish or a full-blown Spanish," Nancy said, explaining why she loves using the app.
But just because she's now seeking a partner with a similar cultural background to her, that doesn't mean that her connection with Bartise wasn't genuine.
Reflecting on the conversation she had with Bartise about abortion on the show, she said, "That was probably one of the first times I've ever had a conversation that was so heartfelt and so deeply vulnerable with a partner."
"It's really important to stand where I stand as a person and my experiences, and what I would do for my body would be my choice," she added.
"Love Is Blind: After the Altar" is streaming now on Netflix.