'90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way' Spoilers: Are Ariela And Biniyam Still Together?
Ariela is moving to Ethiopia os Biniyam can be present for the birth of their baby.
Youtube Audiences are getting ready to bid the cast of 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days goodbye but fans of the TLC reality franchise don't have long to wait for a new installment of the reality show. The second season of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way launches on June 1.
Fans will get to watch a new set of couples navigate culture shock as Americans move abroad to pursue relationships with their foreign partners. One of the couples is Ariela and Biniyam. Ariela is an American with a passion for travel who is moving to Ethiopia to be with the father of her unborn — and unexpected —baby.
There's a lot Ariela will have to get used to in Africa, including a lack of amenities like a refrigerator.
'90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way' Spoilers: Are Ariela and Biniyam still together?
Read on for spoilers.
Who is Ariela?
Ariela, who is 28 years old, was getting over a divorce and felt like she needed to examine her life. She decided to do some traveling to clear her mind and eventually found herself in Ethiopia. That's where she met Biniyam Shibre, a martial artist, and fell in love. She hadn't planned to stay there forever but when she got pregnant, her plans changed.
Ariela in Israel.
Who is Biniyam Shibre?
Biniyam Shibre is 29 and his Instagram feed shows his skills at taekwondo, MMA, dance, and gymnastics. He's also an aspiring personal trainer. He must be pretty good at his sports because his page featured photos of himself winning competitions and showing off his trophies.
Shibre is an MMA fighter.
Shibre is already a dad.
It's not unusual for cast members on the 90 Day shows to have kids from prior relationships. But Shibre has a more complicated parenting story than most. He has a son who lives in Iowa.
In 2016, Shibre's son Simon was born in New London, Iowa. Simon's mother, Bria had traveled to Ethiopia as a missionary and met Shibre while she was there. They married and she got pregnant with Simon. On a trip home to America, she learned that her son had gastroschisis, a condition in which a baby’s intestines grow outside the body. The situation is life-threatening for the baby and her medical team advised her not to return to Ethiopia for the birth.
Getting Shibre stateside so he could be with his wife and son was a difficult endeavor due to repeated denials for a visitor visa. They had to turn to Bria's Congressman for help getting Shibre a visa to come to the U.S.
Where is Shibre's son now?
We don't know what happened to end Shibre's earlier marriage to an American. He has Instagram posts tagged in Iowa as recently as October 2018. More recent posts are also tagged to Iowa but those are re-posts of old pictures from his feed, not new photos so we assume he's recycling them and noting that his son is still in the U.S. He also has Instagram posts featuring photos of the baby where he wrote, "I miss you" in November 2018. By January 2019, he was tagging posts in Ethiopia. But tagging can be done from anywhere so none of this is definitive proof of location.
Whatever the led to the split, it seems to be acrimonious and Shibre believes he has been unfairly separated from his son. In a post about parental abduction from 2019, he wrote, "It is still kidnapping and abuse even if done by one of the parents! Having your child taken from you is one of the worst pains anyone can endure! She kidnapped him but god knows my heart. I know I will hold my boy again."
On March 15. 2020, Shibre posted an old photo of Simon and wrote, "A father never forgets his son. I will not give up. I love you Simon. I remember how you loved to play with me. I remember how you love movies just like me. I remember changing your diapers. I remember how we prayed when you were born when we thought you might not make it. I remember how all the neighborhood children would come to play in our home. You had the most toys. I remember months in the hospital waiting for you to be better. I remember you falling asleep on the floor outside the door of the bathroom. I remember you loved me, and I pray one day you will know who I am again."
We don't know yet how TLC plans to deal with this backstory.
Shibre's son Simon.
When did Shibre meet Ariela?
Judging from social media posts, It appears that Shibre and Ariela conceived their baby in March 2019. Reports explain that Ariela had arrived in Ethiopia a couple of months before getting pregnant, so we're guessing she and Shibre started seeing one another sometime around the beginning of 2019. She moved back to Ethiopia in September 2019 to start her new life with Shibre, when she was 27 weeks pregnant.
Where are Shibre and Ariela now?
This couple is adhering to TLC's no spoilers rules and keeping their social media feeds free of clues about where they are now. Ariela doesn't even have any pictures of the baby posted on her Instagram feed. The trailer for the new season shows Ariela being appalled at the living conditions that Shibre was expecting her to accept so that will likely be a huge plot point in the show. We can also assume that Shibre's history with a previous American wife and needing an emergency visa to come to the US means he is a terrible candidate for a K1 visa, even before the U.S. issues visa restrictions due to coronavirus. If this couple wants to be together. Ethiopia may be the only place they can do that.
The new season of 90 Day Fiancé The Other Way premiers on June 1 on TLC.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.