Warning! The following contains spoilers for the 90 Day Fiancé Season 9 episode “Pinot You Didn’t.” Read at your own risk!
90 Day Fiancé kicked off Season 9 without immediately giving Ariela Weinberg and Biniyam Shibre airtime, but the returning couple finally made their latest debut in the installment "Pinot You Didn't." There was a lot to recap regarding events that occurred after we last saw them on-screen, as Biniyam officially secured a K-1 visa and could travel to America. Of course, he had to tell his family first, and as many Season 9 previews teased, Ariela got into it with his sisters Mimi Shebere and Wish. Ahead of that big confrontation’s airing on TLC, Mimi called out the network and 90 Day Fiancé in quite the negative fashion.
For those who missed what happened, Ariela and Biniyam surprised his sisters and other family members with the news that they were leaving Ethiopia, and it didn’t go over well. After a verbal exchange between Ariela and Wish, the latter threw wine into Ariela’s face and stormed out of the club they were in. Mimi followed along with members of Biniyam’s family, and the scene ended with Ariela visibly shocked by what happened. Hours before 90 Day Fiancé's latest ep hit primetime (after already being available for Discovery+ subscribers), Mimi took shots at TLC on her Instagram stories with the below:
Mimi called TLC “fake” and “racist” with her post, though it stands to reason the Ethiopian native was referring to 90 Day Fiancé specifically, given her use of the word "show." She shared a similar message with a more permanent Instagram post, and the anti-90 Day vibes were just as strong, even if the image-doctoring skills weren't.
Beyond the obviously timeliness of the episode going live, it’s not entirely clear why Mimi decided to suddenly voice her displeasure with TLC and its wildly popular franchise. Perhaps Mimi feels that she and her family were misrepresented in the edited footage, or that moments were omitted that might have made her sister Wish throwing wine at Ariela seem more out of context. It’s even possible the scene was scripted in part, and she’s just outing the show for purposefully making her family look bad, and she wouldn’t be the first to make that claim.
As I said, we can’t begin to know precisely why Mimi posted about 90 Day Fiancé like this, and her own comment on the Instagram post didn’t provide much further insight.
I was trying come up with [something], but that's the point and direct!
It’s no secret that Ariela doesn’t get along with Biniyam’s sisters, and it’s fair to say that in addition to Biniyam’s partying, they were a noteworthy factor regarding her eagerness to leave Ethiopia. For all the alleged “fakeness” that has been said about the 90 Day Fiancé brand, this post implies the tension between Biniyam’s sisters and Ariela is very real, and isn’t going away anytime soon.
90 Day Fiancé Season 9 airs new episodes on TLC on Sundays at 8:00 p.m. ET. It won’t be long until HBO Max subscribers will be able to enjoy the entire franchise on streaming, but until then, Discovery+ is still the place to catch up on every episode.
