Ryan and Clara both said yes on Decision Day during Married at First Sight Season 12 but they divorced shortly after.
Clara has been more vocal about her feelings surrounding the divorce, whereas Ryan was more private.
Recently, Ryan decided to break his silence and share his extensive thoughts on their public relationship and divorce and how race impacted his interracial marriage with Clara.
Ryan dropped a lot of telling and powerful thoughts in his lengthy post and here are some of the standout subjects he addressed.
Ryan Oubre on interracial relationships and Black culture
Ryan began his post by calling his public marriage and divorce a challenging moment in his life and declaring that the show taught him more about himself than he could ever imagine. He expressed that marrying a stranger was an indescribable experience.
It seems part of what provoked Ryan to finally speak out is untruthful statements being spread about him and his loved ones. Ryan wrote, “What I can no longer sit idly by for is untruthful statements to be continuously made about my family and friends.”
Ryan proceeded to break down his perspective on interracial relationships, stating, “You can’t truly be open to marry another race and not want to marry their culture (or at least at the minimum understand it).”
Ryan, who was known to wear graphic tees highlighting Black lives, is passionate about the resilient and majestic people he comes from. In discussing Black culture, Ryan shared, “The black experience and black culture are not monolithic, there’s no one size fits all shoe. It’s ever-evolving and changing with time.”
Ryan provided insight into some behaviors he feels are disrespectful within his culture and, while he didn’t explicitly state that Clara did these things, there seems to be an implication that he’s referencing his ex-wife.
Listing culturally disrespectful behavior, Ryan wrote, “Walking into a family gathering and not speaking to anyone and scrolling through your phone will never fly” and “Declining food (outside of a food allergy or avoidance) because you don’t like the way it looks won’t help either.”
Ryan Oubre on raising biracial children
In his post, Ryan seemed to suggest there was a lack of understanding between him and Clara when it came to valuing racial identity and how that would be passed on to their biracial children.
Ryan discussed how it’s important to understand the identity of your spouse in interracial relationships because when you have children they will need help navigating their identities. Ryan also expressed how marrying a Black person often means being prepared to help your children understand systemic racism.
When you aren’t Black and have Black children Ryan stated that “you, as [a] non black person, will raise black children one day and you’ll have to explain experiences that you yourself never went through. You’ll have to have the empathy, compassion, and mindset shift to attempt to understand nothing you’ve ever personally been through. In short – you need to at least attempt to understand the culture you married into.”
Ryan Oubre on purpose and being misunderstood
Ryan also took time to recall the moment during MAFS Season 12 where he asked Clara about what drives her during their donut dinner date.
Ryan explained why purpose and drive are so important to him, noting that, “for 100s of years black people couldn’t answer these questions. Black people couldn’t ‘do whatever they wanted.’” and therefore Ryan feels called to make his ancestors proud and be all that they fought and died for him to be.
Ryan revealed that while he avoided having complex race conversations on camera, he and Clara had plenty of these important discussions privately. Ryan was aware of the importance of representing a positive Black man on TV and felt that representation “should be important to my partner”
Ryan admitted, “As the show progressed and we continued to have more conversations around this – my fear of not being understood was happening.”
Ryan also suggested that he is not attempting to accuse Clara of racism but noted “It’s entirely possible (all too often) to not be racist, while still being completely unaware.”
Ryan Oubre on sex
With sex being a huge storyline for Ryan and Clara on MAFS, Ryan acknowledged the importance of sex in his post but also reiterated that sex doesn’t sustain a relationship.
Seemingly referring to Clara’s sexual frustrations within the marriage Ryan wrote, “Hearing more frustration over the lack of sex in the first two weeks than spiritual and mental capability were alarming.”
Ryan also recalled the MAFS application process and shared, “I truly have no idea what was put on that questionnaire by her, but I can assuredly tell you that life out look and religion were non negotiable for me.”
Ryan Oubre on feeling blindsided
Ryan opened up about what he’s found to be the most unfortunate part about the way his relationship with Clara has unfolded.
Ryan wrote, “I think the most unfortunate part of all of it. Despite the months of weekly marital counseling sessions, and numerous conversations around these topics for months during/after the show that were ignored – it’s being used as content for clicks, likes, TikTok dances and the attention of the masses.”
The fitness enthusiast continued, “Capitalizing off that for monetary gain via television specials amongst other things feels like the biggest blindside of all.”
Concluding his post, Ryan emphasized that Clara is 1000% allowed to have her own belief system and he also acknowledged that he’s not perfect and made mistakes as well.
Finally, Ryan ended his lengthy post by saying, “I made a promise to Clara’s parents to be respectful of their daughter regardless of outcome and I intend to keep doing so. Thanks for reading.”
Ryan had a lot of poignant things to say in his vulnerable and impactful statement and the post was liked by fellow castmates Jacob Harder and Chris Williams.
Now that Ryan has spoken out, MAFS viewers certainly have more insight into his side of the story.
Married at First Sight premieres Wednesday, January 5 at 8/7c on Lifetime.