Perfect Match’s Dom Gabriel Pushes Back Against Criticism: ‘I Am Rejecting the F—Boy Label’

Perfect Match star Dom Gabriel officially rejects the “f—kboy” label.

Speaking exclusively with Us Weekly on the 2024 ESPYs Red Carpet on Thursday, July 11, Gabriel railed against some of the biggest misconceptions about him. “There’s so many. Right now, being kind of a player and a f—kboy,” he told Us at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater.

“I’m rejecting the f—kboy label,” he said. “I am a lover, you know what I mean? I'm a loverboy. Everybody has their flaws. Everybody has their moments. But I’m a loverboy at heart, and I don’t have any malicious intent.”

Gabriel was the season 1 winner of Netflix’s Perfect Match in 2023 after his castmates voted him and fellow contestant Georgia Hassarati as the show’s “perfect match.” While the couple left the show in a relationship, they confirmed they were no longer together in March 2023, a month after the season aired.

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At the time, Hassarati told People that distance had a lot to do with their decision to break up. "We were just both in very different situations and we're both from so far away from each other, Australia, Canada,” Hassarati told People last year. “I feel like when you're in that environment you're like, 'Oh, it's going to be fine. We'll make it happen.'”

She added, “But then you come out and everything seems to not flow the way it did in that environment where everything's handed to you and you're just there. We tried to see how it go, and it just, unfortunately, didn't work out."

Gabriel, however, returned for Perfect Match season 2 where he garnered more of a "f—kboy" label after a failed cooking date with contestant Tolú Ekundare, where Gabriel appeared to have more chemistry with their instructor than his date.

“(My) eyes started opening after that first night that we were matched when he went from, like, you know, funny and charming to doom and gloom,” she told TODAY in June, adding of their date, “Because you’re supposed to be going on a date with me, right? But literally, the whole cooking date was you just interacting with the cooking instructor.’ This man barely spoke to me, barely looked at me."

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While speaking with Us on Thursday, Gabriel shared that the biggest lesson he’s learned since becoming a reality star is “to own who you are.” (Gabriel made his reality TV debut in 2022 on Netflix’s The Mole.) “Be authentically yourself,” he said. “You’re the only one who knows who you are, truly. Especially on reality TV, everybody has opinions on who you are. They can overanalyze you, but you’re the only person who knows who you are. So just have faith in who you are and be yourself always.”

Gabriel noted that while he sometimes wants to defend himself on social media, it was important for him to find a balance. He said that staying mum was not always easy, particularly “at the beginning of [his] career.”

“But I’m at the point now where I’ve realized if people don’t like you, they’re just not gonna like you,” he told Us. “There’s nothing you can change about that. Even if you defend yourself, they’ll find some way to twist it. They’ll find some way to spin that narrative.”

Gabriel has learned to take his lumps over several seasons of reality TV. “You just have to take it on the chin. The next thing is going to happen, the next piece of drama is going to happen,” he said.”Everybody is going to move on and forget about it. You just have to move on and weather the storm.”

Reporting by Daniel Trainor