Johnny McEntire and Amy Cortez met and married on season six of Netflix's Love Is Blind. Cortez told People magazine that she experienced stress-related illness around the time the season began airing earlier this year. The reality star said she is in a “much healthier and happier place” thanks to her husband.
Jonny McEntire and Amy Cortez said “I do” on the Season 6 finale of Love Is Blind, promising to stay together through sickness and health, but the reality TV stars didn't expect that to be put to the test so soon into their marriage.
Cortez, 28, told People magazine at the Wildly Better Well-Being event celebrating the launch of Roxanne Kaiser's Proxix gummies in New York City on June 21 that she had experienced chest pains earlier this year and was told by her doctor that it was inflammation of the breastbone and ribs caused by stress.
“I remember when I sneezed, it felt like my whole chest was going to explode,” Cortez recalled. “I was like, I don't know what's happening to me. Right before the show aired, I was really stressed out at work. I was so overwhelmed, it led to the worst pain I'd had earlier that year.”
McIntyre, 28, encouraged Cortez to seek medical help and make herself a priority.
“He would always nudge me, 'You have to put yourself first in situations,'” she says. “I had some really open, deep talks with him and shared my intrusive thoughts with him. I remember crying. I was like, 'I feel like I'm broken. I married you and I feel like I'm falling apart.'”
But McEntire comforted her: “That's what we signed up for,” he told People magazine. “No matter what happens, that's how we're going to get back on our feet.”
Love is Blind stars Johnny McEntire and Amy Cortez at the Wildly Better Well-Being event in New York City on June 21.
Gabriela Morales
The couple decided that Cortez should retire from his job as senior retail specialist in e-commerce.
“I feel like the statistics for Latina women leveling up and achieving this, especially in corporate America, are so low, so I just wanted to keep going. I'm a workaholic,” Cortez said. “I wanted to beat those statistics, but my body was telling me it was time for a change.”
Cortez said she plans to “eventually” return to corporate America, and that her husband has been her “biggest support” during the transition. “I'm in a much healthier and happier place now, but I don't think it would have been possible without him,” she said. “I feel like he's been able to hold me accountable, be responsive, generous and supportive, and I'm so grateful for that.”
McIntyre said he and Cortez have been having “more meaningful conversations” since they worked through Cortez's health scare together.
“We'd always joke around in the pod and say we'd check in while we were filming, but we kind of stopped that for a month or two after the show went off the air,” McEntire revealed. “We were like, 'OK, I'm going to work in this corner, you're going to work in this corner of the room, and we'll talk every once in a while.' I think since then we've been able to take a step back from that and really focus on ourselves.”
Amy Cortez and Johnny McIntyre attend the wedding on Love Is Blind season 6.
Jackson Lee Davis/Netflix
The TV personality said he and Cortez wait to have a check-in conversation “until they're totally free and put their phones down.”
“Johnny was there to listen to me and make sure I felt seen,” Cortez said. “He was there for me through thick and thin.”
Cortez and McIntyre, who celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary in May, bought their first home in Charlotte, North Carolina (“not anytime soon,” she says) and are looking forward to traveling more together.
“I would love to go to Asia with him,” Cortez says, “to Japan or Korea or both. After experiencing Japan for the first time a month after we got married, I was planning a trip with my best friend and I was always like, 'I wish you could have been here and experienced this too.'”
In the near future, the two plan to attend McIntyre's family reunion in Maine, where they'll compete in Olympic-style events like synchronized swimming, Jeopardy! and Drunken Adventures, McIntyre says. “We'll play silly games like you see on TikTok and have a lot of fun,” he adds.
“I'm ready,” Cortez said. “I'm so excited!”
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“Love is Blind” is currently streaming on Netflix.
