Before The 90 Days’ Star Chidi on How He Went Blind

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days Season 7 premiere.]

In the 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days Season 7 premiere, viewers were introduced to the new couples, including Chidi and Rayne. They’ve been dating for five years, and Rayne is preparing to travel to Chidi’s home base of Lagos, Nigeria, and meet him for the very first time.

Chidi, who is blind, opened up about how he lost his vision. “I wasn’t born this way,” he revealed. “It happened at the age of 17 when I had an accident. My friend climbed a tree and an apple fell and hit me on my right eye. The pain was excruciating, and when I got to school, I couldn’t see clearly what was written on the blackboard.”

He continued, “It kept deteriorating, and as a result of the impairment on the right eye, one evening, I fell, and I hit my left eye on a wooden desk, and blood started rushing out. We went to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. Eventually, I was completely blind in both eyes, and I was so devastated. It seemed as if the whole world had come to an end.”

The 33-year-old explained that he can only see a “thick cloud before my face, but sometimes I do experience some spark of different colors of light.” Chidi noted he can “still recollect what the world looks like, and the symphony of sounds around me helps me to visualize my environment.”

Rayne, a chicken farmer from New Mexico, admitted she’s “very self-conscious” about how she looks, so Chidi being blind is a “huge turn on” to her.

Ahead of Rayne’s visit, Chidi confessed that there are some things about her character that “worry” him. He called her “highly temperamental” and brought up their “quarrels and fights.” Chidi admitted that he’s “deeply nervous” about telling Rayne “that we’ll not be sleeping together in the same room. I believe this will not all go well with her.”

90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days, Sundays, 8/7c, TLC