CONFIRMED My 600 Lb Life’s Lupe Donovan’s estranged husband Gilbert is dating her co-star Karina Garcia
If that headline is too tortured for your taste — well, it’s a tortured situation! As we’ve reported over the last few months, it looked like My 600 Lb Life Season 6 star Karina Garcia was cozying up to Gilbert Donovan, the estranged still-husband of Karina’s Season 4 co-star Lupe Donovan. We can confirm with this My 600 Lb Life Lupe update that Karina and Gilbert are indeed a couple, and that Lupe appears to still be grieving over the loss of Andrew Renteria, her longtime paramour, earlier this year.
The photo of Gilbert and Karina at the top of the article is one of the most recent they’ve made public, but the couple have been sharing pics together and sparking plenty of speculation all year long. In a livestream from this past February, Gilbert explained that he had been serving as Karina’s personal trainer for months, and that the “best friends” had simply decided to go public with their friendship.
The reveal got My 600 Lb Life fans talking (and gossiping!), largely because of something else that Gilbert shared: according to his side of the story, he and Lupe were technically still married. The controversial Gilbert, who first earned viewer ire after pressuring Lupe into sex almost immediately after weight loss surgery in her debut episode, said that he’d sent Lupe the divorce paperwork, but that she’d never actually signed it. (It’s worth pointing out that during Lupe’s time on My 600 Lb Life and Where Are They Now?, Gilbert also revealed he’d been cheating on Lupe.)
Then, earlier this summer, Karina shared a few more pics of herself and Gilbert. The cuddled-up snaps set off another round of gossip about the true nature of the couple’s relationship — and when Karina shared that she’s been filming for her own Where Are They Now? follow-up, it looked like we might get a formal explanation (or at least an exploration) of the couple’s doins.
But now we don’t have to wait. Last week, Gilbert shared Karina’s then-anonymous June 30th Facebook relationship status update on his own page:
And here’s another filter-friendly pic of the two of them together, which Gilbert shared on the same day:
Plus, in a first for our coverage of this My 600 Lb Life Lupe update, Lupe herself actually commented on the first photo of Karina and Gilbert together. “Wow…nice pic,” she wrote. “Looks like ill be staying here in Cali…” (Lupe has never moved away from her California home; after she and Gilbert separated, he moved to Texas.)
A friend of Lupe’s, who presumably thought Lupe was not taking the reveal well, encouraged her to go back to Houston and finish her weight loss journey. “Thats wut i plan on doing by next month,” Lupe wrote, at the end of July. “But im going to fly out with a friend and then stay at a hotel for a week..ill find out the beginning of next week.”
At this point Gilbert, who either liked or loved both of Lupe’s comments, chimed in. “I’m just being supportive and want [Lupe] here to get her last surgery done so she can walk,” Gilbert wrote. He added, “She deserves it.”
Devoteés will recall that Lupe, who at one point had the sixth-biggest weight loss in My 600 Lb Life history, later suffered a hip injury and gained back almost all of the 300 pounds she lost during the first part of her weight loss journey. However, in late March of this year, Lupe also wrote that though she remained unable to walk, she was down to just 201 pounds from her peak weight of 642 — for a total loss of 441.
We’ll close with a trio of Lupe’s latest photos. She shared the first on July 27th:
Lupe uploaded the next two just three days ago. She seems more willing to show more of herself in the newest shots, perhaps indicating her determination to get back to Houston:
You can stream Lupe’s 2018 Where Are They Now? episode on the show’s official site.
(Photo credits: My 600 Lb Life Lupe update via Facebook)
John Sharp is Starcasm’s chief editorial correspondent-at-large. Tips: E-mail john@starcasm.net or Twitter @john_starcasm.
