When viewers last saw her, My 600 Lb Life star Laura Perez feared she was near a breaking point with her then-husband Joey. Since then, Laura and Joey did indeed split up, and Laura appeared to find love with a new man. So where is Laura Perez now?
After all, My 600 Lb Life viewers are used to surprise romance updates from the cast. And if Laura really is married, she would be the third My 600 Lb Life cast member to tie the knot this year.
However, after teasing what sounded like a pregnancy, Laura’s updates have gotten very contradictory. And she recently disappeared from social media entirely.
Where is Laura Perez now?
The good news is that Laura’s weight loss journey continues to be a successful one. The photo at the top of the article, in which she’s clearly lost weight, is from this past March.
And here’s a second update pic, from the same time. It’s further proof that Laura appears to be keeping the weight off. She’s already gone from a peak weight of 594 pounds all the way down to 182 — and could be losing more:
Around the time that she shared the above pics, Laura began appearing in photos with another man. (We’ll get to more of what we know about Laura Perez and Joey in the next section of the article.)
It seems that since her most recent My 600 Lb Life episode aired, Laura has found love in the arms of a new man named Eric Juarez. Below is one of the first photos of Laura and Eric as a couple. Laura shared it one week after the solo image above:
Laura’s first update involving Eric at first touched on the psychological damage she says Joey has left her with. After making that point clear, Laura then quickly pivoted to the “loving, caring man” she has now.
“When my ex started to tell me stuff that brought my self esteem down and made me feel like sh!t for the last 3 years,” Laura wrote. “So much damage was done that. There is no healing but now ive moved on thank god he is a great hardworking, loving, caring man that puts me first not noone or nothing im blessed to have him.”
What happened to Laura Perez and Joey? Are they really divorced?
At the same time, Laura also started offering brief explanations of what had happened between herself and Joey. Laura hasn’t said exactly when she and Joey split. But she has made it clear that she and Joey are no longer a couple.
Laura also hasn’t said whether she and Joey are separated or formally divorced.
However, the most recent and longest Laura Perez update so far is where things start to get a little strange. Though the update comes from Laura’s official Facebook page, it appears to actually have been written by Eric.
And it offers the confusing claim that Laura and Eric either already have children together or were expecting a baby at the time of the post.
In addition, someone — it could have been Laura, though we’re guessing it really was Eric — explains exactly when and why Laura left her husband.
According to the update, last November, Joey slept with an ex-girlfriend of Eric’s. Joey then “made [Laura] wanna kill herself.” And he was somehow involved in a third person — a friend of Joey’s — stealing money from Laura.
After Laura confronted the thief, both he and Joey “hit her ass.” After that, Laura left her now-estranged (or ex-) husband.
Additionally, the post refers to Laura as having the last name “Juarez.” So the implication seems to be that at some point after last November, Laura married Eric and took his last name.
We haven’t yet confirmed that the two are legally married. For posterity’s sake, then, here’s the April 28th update in full:
Hello this is her new husband eric juarez well i carry myself with respect I known my beautiful wife for 1year now and god blessed us with 2 babys there girls shes 5months yes almost there cant wait and y’all must not kno how bad she was mistreated by joey pacheco
but around the end of November he slept with my ex girlfriend kayla yanez and we were so shocked nd on November 18 2017 joey made her wanna kill herself and i told her what’s the matter babygirl nd she told me his friend stole money from her wallet and she confronted him joey friend hit her and joey hit her ass
well y’all fans that say where’s joey hes no longer in her life i hope god helps joey with his drug addiction and thank youu every single one of y’all i just wanna say thank you so much for supporting my wife angelika Juarez god bless y’all
This breathless update wouldn’t be complete without a picture. Here’s the most recent photo of themselves that Laura and Eric have made public. They shared it on April 17th, just under two weeks before the long update above:
We reached out to Laura and Eric, but have yet to hear back. So far, we’re unable to confirm what happened to Laura Perez, either from Laura or the people mentioned in Eric’s April 28th update.
And since that update, Laura hasn’t made any public posts.
In addition, neither Laura nor Eric — who were regular photo sharers until this past spring — revealed any photos of themselves holding a five-month-old baby.
It’s possible that Eric meant Laura was five months pregnant, not that he and Laura had a five-month-old daughter. (Or, if you want to be both literal and charitable, that five months ago Laura gave birth to twin daughters.)
But Laura does not appear to be pregnant in any of the images she shared of herself throughout 2017 and into 2018.
Will there be another Laura Perez My 600 Lb Life episode?
After all the drama in her personal life, we sure hope so! All of a sudden, we’ve got a *ton* of unanswered questions about Laura. And another follow-up episode would go a long way toward answering them.
But Laura’s most recent update has an ellipsis at the end of it. Since we first published this story, Laura’s long-running Facebook page vanished from the site.
We’ve also been unable to contact Laura, Eric, or anyone else associated with Laura.
If you have any information on how Laura may be doing today — or whether she just wants privacy, after several years in the show’s spotlight — you can drop a tip via e-mail, Twitter, or Instagram. (We’ll withhold all names and identifying information.)
Until we find out more, you can stream all three of Laura’s My 600 Lb Life episodes via TLC. You’ll find her first episode here, her first WATN episode here, and her final episode to date right here.
(Photo credits: Facebook)
John Sharp is a Starcasm’s chief editorial correspondent-at-large. Tips: E-mail at john@starcasm.net or Twitter at @john_starcasm.
