Jess Vestal Insinuates ‘Perfect Match’ Ex Harry Jowsey Wants to ‘Live Up’ to F–kboy Persona

Jess Vestal isn’t certain that she ever truly knew former boyfriend Harry Jowsey — or if he was ready to be in a committed relationship.

“For my own personal sanity, I don’t want to say that it didn’t come from a good place,” Jess, 30, said during the Wednesday, July 10, episode of the “Viall Files” podcast, referring to Harry’s comments about embracing her daughter, Autumn. “I’d like to think I have a better read on someone than to think that I could be manipulated into thinking it was real when it wasn’t. I do think watching it back and seeing it … I could see he really did mean and want the things he said to me, but he also is this completely other person [with] this image he has and wants to live up to.”

Jess and Harry, 27, met filming Netflix’s Perfect Match in 2023, which aired on the streaming platform last month. While Jess was “aware” of Harry’s Too Hot to Handle past, she gave him another chance after he proved to be insightful, smart and mature on their three-hour first date.

After Jess was questioned on Wednesday whether Harry had a “f—kboy persona,” she nodded affirmatively.

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“I don’t think they’re two mutually exclusive things. I think he could be both,” the Love Is Blind alum said, responding whether he is more of a “f—kboy” than a genuine, kind partner. “He has a way of being able to adapt and be whatever he needs to be — and maybe wants to be — in the moment. I can see him and I can see the emotion and I can see how he was talking about me in his interviews … and I can’t think, ‘There’s no way he didn’t mean it.’”

Jess prefers to believe that Harry was “genuine” in their brief romance — they rekindled their Perfect Match connection after filming ended while he was training for Dancing With the Stars — despite a flirty public persona.

“The whole f—kboy, never taking himself serious [side wasn’t present behind the scenes]. Off-camera, he was even more wonderful,” she recalled. “It’s, like, when the cameras were on, he was on. When it was just us and [there] were no cameras, those were things I held onto that made it hard to walk away from.”

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Jess further claimed that their relationship was “100 percent a trauma bond” and that she hasn’t seen the true Harry.

“I want to think that he loved me as selflessly and as beautifully as I felt like he did, but his actions, to this day, do say otherwise,” Jess said, claiming Harry refused to delete a social media post about her despite her constant pleas. “I think he’s brilliant … but I don’t follow the logic of ‘any publicity is good publicity as long as people are talking about you.’”

Jess has no further plans to speak with Harry in the future.