‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’s Tiff on What They Would’ve Said

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Ultimatum: Queer Love finale and reunion.]

Old habits died hard after Tiff Der and Mildred Woody got engaged on The Ultimatum: Queer Love. While they ended the season on a happy note, that engagement bliss was long gone in the Episode 10 reunion, streaming now on Netflix.

Host JoAnna Garcia Swisher had been doing the rounds with the cast, asking about their noteworthy moments (good and bad) from the season when she asked Tiff about their fight with Sam Mark. Tiff barely got to comment on this moment (which, notably, didn’t involve their ex at all) before Mildred interrupted to shift the focus onto her. What happened next was a snowball of accusations as Mildred and Tiff fought about their sides of the story of their intense breakup.

One of the revelations was Mildred revealing her arrest. As she stated in the reunion, she was arrested at their shared home around the time of their split after throwing furniture at Tiff. She said the cops made her take off her engagement ring when she was detained and she never put it back on. Mildred also grilled Tiff for being on dating apps and having dates over to the house they shared, but Tiff noted that they had already broken up at that point. Mildred admitted that was true but said Tiff was wrong to have people over to play “sex games” (which she also claimed to be in possession of at the time of filming the reunion) when she and Tiff were still splitting rent on the house. Mildred had already moved out when Tiff started bringing dates over.

Additionally, Mildred said Tiff tried to make her special needs son pay rent at the home. Tiff admitted it was a naive question to ask but said they did not force the son to pay anything. Anytime Tiff tried to respond to Mildred’s accusations, Mildred would tell them to stop interrupting just like she did earlier in the season. Through this tactic, Tiff barely got to respond to any of Mildred’s claims. Eventually, Tiff walked off set and didn’t come back.

TV Insider spoke with Tiff to see what they would have said had they not been steamrolled during the reunion.

“I just want to make it clear that I came into that reunion with peace in my heart,” they started off. “It was not my intention to slander her, berate her on stage. I understand that relationships are very complex underneath the hood that a lot of people can’t see. And, yeah, there were a lot of accusations on Mildred’s part towards me. I think I took accountability where it was due, but I definitely at least tried to speak up in the moments where I believe that the truth was completely twisted and completely narrated to fit her story of victimization.”

“It was a snapshot of the relationship I had with her,” they continued. “I could go on and on about that. It’s hard to kind of put it in a nutshell, but it brought me back to those moments that I had with her. And that’s the exact reason why I left that relationship. So when I come from four months of peace, breaking off the relationship, not having feelings for this woman anymore, and come back into a reunion and knowing that someone can actually have that much power over me, it was an eye opener.”

Walking off of the reunion set was a huge act of self-care for Tiff and a sign of their new perspective on what their relationship was always like.

“I’ve been trying to prove myself to her for years, and she’s not my battle to fight anymore,” they said. “I could sit there and try to defend every single accusation, but I’ve already been doing that for three — pardon my language — f**king years. I don’t have anything to say to her. Getting out of the relationship, I recognize the patterns.”

Courtesy of Netflix

“My instinct was to say, ‘Actually, XYZ never happened. Can we actually talk about why you got arrested?’ Or, ‘Hey, you know what, XYZ didn’t happen? What about when you did this? What about when you shamed me here? What about last spring when you did this f**ked up thing to me?’” they explained. “I didn’t want to be on her level. I saw how disgusting her behavior was, and I took the high road, because I realized that I could defend myself with all of these accusations, but it wouldn’t mean anything because with a narcissist, you never win.”

“I have nothing else that I wanted to say on stage other than hurt people hurt people. That’s it,” Tiff added.

Tiff said they informed production of the relationship turmoil post-filming when they arrived on set for the reunion.

“They have a prep about, you know, ‘Hey, where’s your life now? What’s going on?’ And I told production right away. I’m like, ‘Hey, this is what’s happened. Here’s the situation. Here’s the police report. I don’t know how to speak my truth without publicly shaming her and throwing her underneath the bus. This is not my intention to do this, I don’t want to be that person.’ So I came in debating whether I was even going to bring it up or not,” they explained. “Because if I did, I wanted to tread lightly with it. I wanted to speak my truth without hurting someone, and there’s a fine line between that. But she busted the door wide open herself and then flipped the entire narrative and somehow made her getting arrested my fault with everything else that was happening. It was just disgusting and disappointing to see.”

Tiff believes they tried their best to “admit where I was wrong and where I could be better” throughout the season’s production process. “How I see it, you only see one percent of what is actually filmed. But I really do believe in my heart that both of us, if you would have seen 100 percent, it would have just been more of that one percent. It would have been the same; it would have just been more content. And that goes from me making the mistake of yelling at Sam, but also trying to be better. I didn’t really see Mildred take any accountability for things.”

Tiff said their relationship with Sam, who left the reunion stage to offer them support, is still that of a close friend. “We do check-in calls with each other once a month or so and especially recently since all the show has come out,” they shared. “She’s one of those friends where I cannot talk to her for three, four months, or whatever, and then it’s like a soul connection — you just pick up where you leave off.”

The Ultimatum: Queer Love, Streaming Now, Netflix

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