90 Day Fiancé: All Of Yara Zaya’s Reality TV Appearances In Ukraine

If 90 Day Fiancé fans thought that Yara Zaya and Natalie Mordovtseva were facing the camera for the first time while filming the TLC show, they were soon proved wrong. Natalie acted in multiple crime shows in Ukraine and was also the face of a popular music video. Similarly, Yara has a detailed reality TV resume, as she began showing up on small screens when she was 19. Although the clips revived from these shows are now controversial, due to the fact that Yara looks shockingly different in them, they do show a fun side of Jovi’s partner. They also reveal her transformation into the fashion queen she is today.

The debate over Yara getting plastic surgery or not started when a few Reddit fans happened to find out her Ukrainian name, “Yaroslava.” They did some digging around to learn more about the 90 Day Fiancé cast member. A younger Yara (she’s now 25), who’d moved to America on season 8 to start a new life with Jovi Dufren (he’s 29), looked unrecognizable in her previous avatar. Now, Yara appears level-headed onscreen, standing up to Jovi’s parents. She has started a fashion business offscreen. In 2014, she seemed more vulnerable, and the old footage really got fans talking.

The first-ever clip of Yara Zaya was discovered by TLC viewers on Reddit, and it featured her appearance in a show called Fashion To the People. She was 19 when she appeared on the show. In the video, Yara mentions how she’s a “big party girl” and loves nightclubs (just like Jovi does). “I also love rich men, foreigners probably,” Yara declared, as a voiceover noted how her mother is a baker from Zakarpattya and her father is a successful businessman from Hungary. Her parent’s divorce when she was little left her traumatized. Yara had come to Kyiv looking for love with foreigners. However, the 90 Day Fiancé star wanted to change her style on the 2014 show. She also confessed that she would marry a foreigner, as she considered them better and smarter than Ukrainian men.

A year later, Yara showed up on a dating show with a brand-new brunette look. The show wasn’t so different from 90 Day Fiancé. In Love Online, Yara, who seemed to have a different nose shape, was dating a Russian guy named Raphael, who was living in Barcelona. Cameras followed her as she flew to his city and spent three days with him. However, they broke up in the end. This show had mentioned how Yara had worked as a waitress, seamstress, and administrator. According to Love Online, Yara was not afraid of challenges and dreamed of becoming a psychologist. Interestingly, a scene featured Yara drinking whisky in broad daylight, something she’d called out Jovi for doing on 90 Day Fiancé. More controversially, there is a scene where Yara apparently admits to having gotten a nose job, which is something that she’s been denying since her TLC debut.

One of Yara’s recent reality show stints was a game show called Who Is Against Blondes? which aired in May 2020. However, by that time, Yara was already living in the United States with 90 Day Fiancé co-star Jovi. On Instagram, Yara Zaya posted a video from her appearance on this show, which is a spin-off series of the Dutch show, Beat the Blondes. See her post below:

In the post, Yara revealed that the shoot for the show was “the most idiotic and long-lasting” and that she didn’t want to participate in it. However, it was too late. Yara had already signed the contracts. Despite her disinterest, producers called her a month later, asking her to shoot another episode. Maybe producers sensed the star quality that fans see today.

90 Day Fiancé airs Sundays at 8 pm ET on TLC.

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Saylee Padwal
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Saylee Padwal is a Features and News Writer for Screen Rant where she covers Reality TV. Enjoys spending her spare time binging her favorite horror films, crime docs, and exploring local coffee shops.

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