In a dramatic preview for the next episode of Before the 90 Days, we see Ricky’s fiancée Ximena in tears as she reveals in a voice-over: “I got a message from Ricky’s ex-wife.” Ricky explains to her that “The situation is very complicated,” but his assurance seems to do little to make Ximena feel any better; in another voice-over, she says “I don’t know what games Ricky is playing.” Then, back in the scene with Ricky, Ximena tells him through tears: “It’s all lies.”
At this point, Ximena is clearly used to Ricky’s lies — and she has forgiven him for some pretty huge ones. So what in the world did Ricky’s ex-wife tell Ximena that could possibly wreck their engagement? (In case you missed it, Ximena is currently living in Florida, and not with Ricky.)
The most obvious answer would be that she revealed Ricky and his ex-wife are actually still married. This came out on the show in the first episode, and we broke the news before that in our extensive background post on Ricky. I was (and am still) unable to dig up any record of a divorce filing for Ricky’s most recent marriage, though that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been filed. But I suppose that Ricky’s “ex” wife messaging Ximena to tell her that they have not filed for divorce, and that they were still working on their marriage, might do the trick.
There is also a similar possibility — one that’s even more shocking. There has been A LOT of off-screen drama surrounding Ricky over the last few weeks, involving his aggressive courting of various women he met online. (I’ve included a relatively brief recap with receipts at the bottom of this post.) Ricky’s wife has gotten herself caught up in the drama, and has come under a great deal of scrutiny as a result. That scrutiny led to a recent story claiming Ricky and his wife concocted the whole Colombian trip, in addition to his appearance on 90 Day Fiance, as a way to bring exposure to Crown Film Productions, their photography and videography business.
According to a production source, the whole Melissa story line was fabricated by production to enhance the drama. Which, by itself, is not that shocking (in fact, it’s exactly what we speculated previously). But, the Soap Dirt story continues with more eyebrow-raising accusations:
The production source said that Ricky and his wife “planned everything for fame and money”. The couple own a photography and film production company, Crown Productions, and hoped the attention might make him social media famous, said the anonymous tipster. If this was the goal, the backlash against him and his lies showed it failed.
On the episodes of 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days shot in Medellin, before Ricky Reyes and Ximena Parra traveled to the resort. Ricky implied they slept together. The anonymous insider confirmed Ricky and Ximena were intimate. However, the source said sleeping with her was not part of the plan he hatched with his wife. Reportedly, his wife was hurt and stunned that her husband cheated.
The alleged plan was for him to seek fame but not betray her. The tipster said during filming, it was obvious that Ricky had feelings for Ximena and these deepened during the shoot, but from the start, “everything was a hoax.”
After all of the recent off-screen drama, Ricky’s wife responded to the accusations in an Instagram post by John Yates. “Let me make one thing clear,” she asserts. “I was not involved and never will be in this show. I knew [Ricky] was going to Colombia, I was told the day before our anniversary, when I was already living somewhere else, that he was moving on. Had I known that it was to this magnitude, I would have prepared myself.”
However, Ricky’s wife does admit that their marriage was not over…by revealing that the two of them gave it another shot after he returned from his Colombian Heartbreaker Tour. “After his trip, there were lots of regrets and promises, so blame me for being dumb,” she admits. “But that is all I was. I gave a man I loved another chance.”
John Yates didn’t seem to believe her, and responded: “It’s a real sin what you guys did to poor Ximena. The jig is up and the cat is out of the bag.”
Ricky’s wife replied:
I did nothing to Ximena. As soon as I saw the direction he had for the company, I stepped away. There is not enough money in the world to justify doing that to her, or putting myself through this. Now – did he have feelings for her? 100% but as we have all seen, his feelings change rather quickly. I read the article, that I was involved – it’s nonsense. As soon as I found out he was going, i emailed tlc to tell them he was married, how they chose to proceed with this, is beyond me.
UPDATE – If you watched the episode, then you now know that Ricky’s wife merely told Ximena that Ricky told her that his relationship with Ximena wasn’t serious. We didn’t get anything specific, just the very brief secondhand recap from Ximena.
I should point out that Ricky does have an actual ex-wife: his first wife and mother of his oldest daughter. It is possible that the scene involves her, in which case I have no idea what the call was about. The obvious guess would be to reveal that Ricky cheated on her, and that’s why they divorced.
If you are wondering why the previously outspoken Ricky is not online defending himself, that’s because the recent off-screen drama included doxing, alleged scrotographs, drunken flirty videos, lawsuit threats, and more — all of which basically ran Ricky off of social media completely. (He did just return, but appears to be trying to keep things strictly business now.)
So what happened? What is all this drama surrounding Ricky? I’ll try to recap it all as succinctly as possible. Once I’ve concluded my recap, I will inundate you with receipts — feel free to take in as much or as little as you wish.
The moderators of the 90 Day Fiance subreddit sponsored a Before the 90 Days viewing party in New York City on Sunday, September 9. One of the moderators on the subreddit uses the name katie_not_holmes, and she also has a 90 Day Fiance meme account with the same ID. Ricky, who was rather infamous for acclimating himself to those making fun of the show, had already slid into Katie’s DMs and he told Katie that he was going to be in New York City that weekend and he’d like to meet up with her. (His reason for being in New York City shifted from meeting with TLC producers to seeing his mom, who apparently lives in New Jersey.)
Ricky, who either currently works for the US Department of Labor as an investigator or used to work for them in that capacity, then managed to book a hotel room very near Katie’s apartment.
Ricky flooded Katie’s inbox with texts, including some allegedly graphic photos and video, as he pressed her to meet up — which they eventually did. Katie met him at a bar and then invited an inebriated Ricky back to her apartment. *** It seems I missed a very important part of Katie’s story in that she was VERY drunk prior to taking a cab back to her apartment, at which point Ricky shoved himself into the cab with her. Katie did not invite Ricky to her apartment. *** They eventually made their way up to the roof of her building where Ricky got sick and puked off the edge. Oh, and the couple ate pizza — I believe it was after the rooftop purge, but I’m not certain.
Katie essentially did an impromptu AMA on the 90 Day Fiance subreddit the next day, including photos of Ricky on her rooftop and also eating pizza — as proof that they did actually meet up.
At some point during the weekend, Ricky’s wife DMed Katie out of the blue by asking: “Hey this is Rickys wife, question when you have a chance.” Katie replied cordially, but Ricky’s wife never responded with the question. So Katie replied again and got a little dirt:
KATIE: So Q for you — are you and Ricky still married-married? Not asking because I’m interested in publishing, but for my own personal reference.
RICKY’S WIFE: Ahh! We are – I just want nothing to do with this show. I enjoy my privacy 😉 … In any case, my question was answered by the man himself so sorry for bothering you!
Ricky still seemed sort of OK with all the exposure at this point. He had apparently wanted Katie to post the photos of him, and he even commented on her AMA: “All of the above is true ( well like 85 %) / therefore there is validity and I can confirm it myself.”
But something went wrong, as Ricky’s private messages with Katie started to include legal threats and the revelation that he knew her real name and where she worked. From there, things really started to escalate: Ricky posted a YouTube video with Katie’s personal information, which I did not see and which was reportedly taken down quickly. Then, Katie began to unleash her receipts, including pretty much all of her conversations with Ricky except the scrotographs and elicit video.
Some highlights of Ricky’s alleged texts include one claim that he slept with a show producer in Ohio, and another that producers wanted to have him star in a spin off.
In the middle of all this, another young woman from Canada surfaced, with a similar tale of Ricky’s virtual woo pitching. She posted receipts as well — including the same line about getting a spin-off.
OK, that pretty much does it. Thanks for tuning in and reading this far — I’m going to leave now and leave you with the “evuhdens” binder of receipts that’s Katie has been posting over the last couple weeks:
Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com
