Among the many things Dominique would like to address about her tumultuous Perfect Match journey, there’s one point she wants to make clear: That fight wasn’t just about yoga. 

The Too Hot to Handle alum joined a slew of Netflix’s most eligible singles for Season 2 of the crossover reality series, which drops stars across the Netflix Reality Universe into one villa for a summer of mix-and-match fun. Dominique entered the experience with hopes of riding off into the Tulum sunset with the man or woman of her dreams. Instead, she spent the bulk of her time clashing with two romantic prospects, Bryton of Squid Game: The Challenge and Chris of Dated & Related. 

Early on in the season, Dominique matches up with Bryton, and yet the two can’t seem to agree on anything — from their approach to winning a challenge to whether yoga is considered exercise. But, as she tells Tudum, there was much more brewing underneath the surface. 

“I liked him for maybe two hours, and then it became very evident to me that he was the kind of person who was using me to get hate speech across on television,” she says. “He put me through an incredibly emotionally draining process where I had to go through the labor of combating somebody who has no self-awareness or respect for anybody else. I came here looking for love, and it was exhausting.”

“From the first night, I hated him,” she adds. “I literally lost my voice screaming at him … But we’d already matched at that point, so what can you honestly really do?” 

While there was an initial physical spark between the two, Dominique, who’s bisexual, says it became apparent Bryton was somebody she’d never date in real life after they began to broach other topics. “He was basically going on about how men shouldn’t be able to cry, express their emotions, or wear clothes outside of their gender expression,” she claims. “He slammed Dom for crying during the first season.”

Tensions only escalated when they navigated their first physical challenge of the season together, which saw pairs thrusting in unison while suspended over water in a race toward a finish line. During the game, Bryton ignored Dominique, who has a degree in engineering, when it came to strategy, leading to a tearful postgame interview. “He was being patronizing and talking down to me, further confirming what I already knew,” she recalls. “He cannot take advice because he finds it insulting to his manhood ... I find that disgusting.”

According to Dominique, tensions only escalated between the pair following the challenge, when Bryton began to espouse his views about LGBTQ+ identity.

“He's like, ‘Oh, I think it’s fine that you’re bisexual because you’re a woman … and I think it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” That’s when Dominique says she reached her breaking point in the villa. “My soul literally left my body. Now I’m sitting here arguing with him about what’s basically an antigay hate slogan,” she recalls. “We literally spent 45 minutes just arguing about gay rights. I don’t think he’s listened to a single thing I said.”

With her relationship with Bryton beyond repair, Dominique turned her attention toward newcomer Chris after she was selected to join him on a first date. But her hopes of finding a genuine connection were dashed when she says Chris viewed her sexuality only “as a gimmick.”

“He went around the house the entire day talking about my sexuality and me wanting to go on a date with a woman, saying how it was going to make him look bad,” Dominique explains. “He was just another man who’s just completely insecure in his masculinity, because once he found out that I don’t use my sexuality as a way to attract men, now it’s a problem.”

Dominique knows that it may appear as if she’s drawn to toxic dynamics with men, given a jokey sound bite she gives early on in the season. But, let it be known, she’s “not attracted to that kind of behavior” — especially in men. “[That comment] was not about a man,” she explains. “The kind of toxicity I’m attracted to is women who look like an evil witch coming to steal your soul in the middle of the night and keep it in the drawer. Now that’s hot.”

With two disastrous connections, Dominique chose to end her Perfect Match journey on her own terms. “As much as I wanted to be here and fall in love, I’m not going to fake a connection because you obviously have an issue with my sexuality,” she says. “I’m not going to compromise who I am and devalue myself by begging just so I can stay in this house. I would rather leave.”

And so she did, confident in knowing that there was no romance to be found in the villa. Turns out, she was right, as Dominique has since become very much attached to a new woman, who’s made her feel completely at home in herself and her identity. 

“I’m constantly learning something new about myself,” she says about the relationship. “Being with them makes me a more expansive person. The life that we create for ourselves is capable of going obviously beyond just the same old heteronormative shit. It’s a really beautiful thing to experience love, and it’s exciting.”