The Truth About My 600-Lb Life Star Steven Assanti's Marriage - Exclusive
Steven Assanti polarized audiences on TLC's My 600-Lb Life with his confrontational personality, and the drama lasted long after the cameras stopped rolling. Perhaps the most enduring buzz surrounding the star is the widespread speculation about the validity of his marriage to Stephanie Assanti (née Sanger), a mother of one from Des Moines, Iowa. Fans on the internet — and even Steven's own father — thought his relationship might be a scam.
In case you need a little refresher, Steven shocked audiences during Part 4 of his string of episodes when his father revealed that he was moving to be with his girlfriend. The pair claimed they met online, and Steven's pops suspected the relationship might be fake. Though the couple tied the knot in 2018, per Republic World, there's not much information confirming their status beyond a 2018 interview with Starcasm and Stephanie's alleged personal Facebook page, which states that she's married and features a number of loved up photos of the reality star.
So, is the pair's marriage legitimate and are they still together? Steven sat down with Nicki Swift to dish on the juicy details of his much-debated love life.
YouTube Live brought Steven and Stephanie Assanti together
Though Stephanie Assanti — or Steven Assanti posing as Stephanie, which we'll get into later — told Starcasm that she fell for the reality star after seeing him on My 600-Lb Life, the couple actually met on YouTube Live. He told Nicki Swift that he noticed she was addressing him a lot in the chat, and as time went on, the crowd commenting around her fell to the wayside in a way not too dissimilar from star-crossed lovers spotting each other across a room in a rom-com.
"It's so weird, I don't understand how it happened, but eventually as the chat went on, whatever, I kind of only noticed her comments and nobody else's," he said. "There was a ton of people in there. It's like nobody else mattered but what she was saying eventually, but I didn't give it up. I didn't give it up easy." Though Steven joked that he initially played hard to get, the reality of it was that he didn't think much about Stephanie's comments. "What am I saying? But no, because she's so beautiful. I didn't think I was going to get somebody like that. I didn't," he said. It wasn't until Stephanie messaged him saying "Well, I guess you don't want a girlfriend" that he finally got the hint.
"That's how it all started," he recalled. "And then it went on from there, and we met at a hotel. She came and picked me up from there, from Texas. It's a nice cutesy little love story."
The catfish rumors were tough on Stephanie Assanti
Though Steven Assanti and Stephanie Assanti got married in 2018, it took awhile for people on the internet to believe that their relationship was real, largely because TLC planted the seed of doubt in Steven's storyline. At first, fans believed Stephanie was a catfish and weren't afraid to voice their opinions (and since it was the internet, you can guess that their opinions weren't exactly nice). This wasn't always easy for Stephanie, who wasn't used to public scrutiny.
"Me and her, we would just laugh [at the catfish rumors], and we would be like, 'Meow,' and she'd be like, 'Meow,'" Steven told Nicki Swift. "Silly things like that, because I know she wasn't a catfish, but people would, people were really awful though to her, horrible things." Steven admitted that Stephanie, who works as a massage therapist, chooses not to live her life in the public eye, and it was tough for her to be in the spotlight. That perhaps explains an incident that occurred with Starcasm when Steven allegedly posed as his wife and answered her social media DMs.
"She's not out there like me. She's a private person, but it did affect her," he says. "She'd get angry a lot, but eventually we just, we both disappeared for a while, but she's not an internet [person]. She's not out there like me. I love [the] internet, and I like interviews and being put out there on a pedestal, and she's not. She's more of a private [person], but she's awesome."
Steven and Stephanie Assanti are separated, but hope to work things out
While chatting with Nicki Swift, Steven Assanti wholeheartedly admitted that he loves his wife with "all [his] heart and soul," but things are a little complicated at the moment. As of this writing, the pair are still "married and together" but are "technically separated," living about an hour and half away from each other in two different cities. Steven said he's spending his time in his "own bubble" in his apartment due to fear that he may catch COVID-19 (though he's not as heavy as he was prior to the show, his weight makes him high risk), and "she's kind of doing her own thing" in Des Moines. "She has her job, and she's just doing her own thing right now," Steven told Nicki Swift.
Despite the distance, the pair planned to spend the holidays together, and Steven doesn't seem to be phased by their temporary separation. "We're always working it out," he told us. "I love her with all my heart and she loves me. We're just in two different households right now. Need a little break. Just a little break, that's all. We're fine. There's no arguing. No, nothing like that. We're cool. We're still married. She's awesome."