“When I hear of people falling madly in love online, I kind of roll my eyes,” says Louisiana’s Amanda Wilhelm, of Eunice, on Sunday night’s sixth-season premiere of TLC’s “90-Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.”
But now, it’s happened to her.
The widowed mother of two joins six other Americans whose stories of finding love online with someone in a foreign country will unfold this season.
This part of the “90-Day Fiancé” follows the beginnings of the couple’s stories, before they might become engaged, apply for a visa, and their loves abroad travel to the U.S. Once here, the couples have 90 days to marry before their permit to be in the country expires and they must return home.
The 31-year-old brunette — mother to Aleena, 7, and Jason Jr., 4 — says she wasn’t looking for love or another mate so soon after her husband Jason Wilhelm’s death in March 2022. However, Wilhelm was on TikTok one night watching a friend doing a live-stream challenge. Her friend kept winning and the guy who was losing “was being so silly,” she says. She sent the handsome guy from Romania a virtual rose (costing less than $1 online) and he later private messaged her.
“Soon, we were talking on the phone every day and night,” she says, and her connection with 26-year-old Razvan Ciocoi, of Bucharest, grew from there.
Although she felt some guilt entering in to a relationship less than a year after becoming a widow, she says Ciocoi was someone she could talk to and lean on during her grief journey, and he opened her heart to love again.
Ciocoi’s work as an actor, singer and social media entertainer (which includes some stripping) has caused its share of problems — bubbling up feelings of jealousy and insecurity in Wilhelm.
“I just hope she knows the difference between filling a void and what’s real,” her concerned sister Amber says.
By episode’s end, Wilhelm is off to Romania to meet Ciocoi for the first time since their initial online meeting four months prior.
Follow her story at 7 p.m. Sundays on TLC.
Leave a Reply