NEED TO KNOW
- Love Island USA stars Iris Kendall and TJ Palma made their New York Fashion Week debut on Sept. 15
- The two attended the Luar fashion show, seemingly confirming that they’d gotten back together following her split from costar Pepe Garcia
- Iris and TJ shared a connection on season 7 of the show before it ended unexpectedly with TJ getting voted off the island
Iris Kendall and TJ Palma went into New York Fashion Week like bombshells.
On Monday, Sept. 15, the season 7 Love Island USA stars stepped out for the Luar fashion show, an appearance that seemed to confirm that they were back together.
Photos taken of the two outside the venue show them holding hands and rocking sexy looks.
Iris, 25, wore a leggy and cleavage-baring two-piece that featured an open, cropped white blazer and matching micro shorts. She accessorized with a tiny black handbag and oversize sunglasses and completed everything with gold lace-up heels. TJ, 23, went for monochromatic black suiting and black Chelsea boots.
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Afterwards, the two hit up an afterparty. Iris slipped into a red-hot corset look for their all-nighter.
On TikTok, Iris posted a video with TJ that gave her followers a glance into the reunion. The clip, set to a soundbite of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken in the Barbie film, showed the two in laid-back outfits as they were getting ready for their big evening out. Their costars, Hannah Fields and Jeremiah Brown, supported the duo in the comments.
Iris and TJ were coupled up on the series before he was voted off. She then paired up with fellow bombshell Pepe Garcia, the two coming in fourth place in the July 13 season finale and later appearing as a couple during the cast reunion, which aired on Aug. 25.
Days later, Pepe confirmed that he and Iris had called it quits, but denied cheating allegations, “Iris and I are not together anymore. That’s just the way it goes,” the 27-year-old told TMZ.
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While attending the House of Champion Powered by Sports Illustrated event on Thursday, Sept. 11, Pepe shared his thoughts on the couple shakeups following the season’s end in an interview with PEOPLE. “It’s just drama. Stay away from the drama. The truth will come out, and that’s just how it is. God finds a way to let everything happen for a reason.”
In July, Iris opened up to PEOPLE about the “very heartbreaking” experience of TJ leaving the villa during a joint interview with Pepe.
“TJ and I had an amazing connection in the villa, and it was real, and it was very heartbreaking for me,” Iris recalled. “I was definitely sad about it, and I cried for days, and I felt very heartbroken and upset with my friends for not standing behind me. And it felt like my only experience that I had in here so far that it was ripped away from me.”
As for her and TJ’s post-Fiji reunion, which was caught on camera by TMZ, she said: “I wanted him to know that, mics off, no cameras around, this was real, but also what I have with Pepe is real as well,” she said of the meet-up. “I just needed to get that closure with him and have that conversation, because I do care about him, and I think that he was definitely owed a conversation. And I haven’t watched any of the episodes, so I don’t know what he has seen, but I just needed to say — I’m all about honesty, and I think being upfront with people is the best way to go.”
