Love is Blind’s Sarah Williams reflects on alleged ’emotional abuse’ she endured during John Shannon marriage

Love is Blind star Sarah Williams has reflected on the alleged ’emotional abuse’ that she endured during her marriage to John Shannon.

Williams and Shannon’s love story was showcased in the latest season of the show, and it completely captured the globe.

Millions watched on as they tied the knot during the season finale, the only couple in the series that made it to the altar, but their relationship came to an explosive end soon after.

Just one day after the episode aired on November 4, news broke that the couple had secretly called it quits, with court documents later revealing that Williams, 34, had filed for divorce from Shannon, 33, in June 2026. 

During the reunion special days later, Shannon sensationally confessed to ‘cheating’ on Williams. He said that while ‘nothing physical’ happened, he had sent ‘graphic’ messages to an escort during a ‘boys night out.’

Now, Williams has shed new light on what led to their split during an appearance on Nick Viall’s podcast The Viall Files, and she claimed that problems arose long before his ‘cheating’ scandal.

The reality star alleged that Shannon ‘slowly tore her down’ for months before their breakup by calling her names like ‘dumb’ and ‘stupid.’

‘He would say things that made me feel shame about myself, I felt like a lesser, meeker version of myself,’ she claimed.

‘And the thing with this type of behavior is, it is mixed in with good [behavior] and that’s what makes it sometimes hard to [leave].

‘It’s a little more hidden than super aggressive, screaming [fights]. But it’s still deeply harmful.’

When asked if she felt like Shannon had been ’emotionally abusive’ to her, she said that while ‘it’s hard for [her] to say those words’ her therapist had branded his behavior as ’emotional abuse.’ 

‘Transparently, it’s hard for me to say those words because I was married to him and I loved him and I think he is very capable of change,’ she said. 

‘He’s very disappointed in himself and he is now in therapy. He’s working on it. But my therapist told me that it was emotional abuse.’

Williams recalled her therapist warning her that if she didn’t leave him she might ‘get f**ked up for life.’

‘My therapist said, “People’s brains get f**ked up for life being in relationships like this, if you do not separate yourself now you could be f**ked up for life,”‘ she said.

When asked if she felt ‘pressure’ to stay with Shannon despite his behavior because she was on the show, Williams confessed: ‘Yes I did.’

‘I wish someone had just like shaken me and had been like, “It’s okay you don’t have to do this,”‘ she said. ‘I took [the show] very seriously.’

Williams added that despite their problems, Shannon ‘always showed remorse’ and ‘apologized,’ which also made it hard for her to leave him.  

‘You think that they’re actually seeing how their behavior affected you and that they’re going to change. But then it just like keeps happening,’ she added.

‘I think at first I was like, I can fix this. But there was a certain point where I was like, “What am I doing?”‘ 

She said the final straw came when she saw the messages on his phone between him and the escort. 

‘There were sexually explicit requests, but then the texts stopped and there was no evidence of like connection or physical cheating,’ she claimed.

During the reunion, Shannon said their marriage had ended because of an ‘unhusbandably mistake’ he had made. 

‘Emotional, physical, doesn’t really matter. In your words, did you cheat on your wife?’ host Nick Lachey asked him at the time, to which he responded: ‘Mhm. I guess so. Yeah.’  

The Daily Mail has reached out to Shannon for comment.