While Colt Johnson has faced plenty of highs and lows in his love life while starring on 90 Day Fiancé, his dynamic with his mother, Debbie Johnson, has perhaps been the most turbulent.
Colt first appeared on the TLC reality show during season 6, which aired from late 2018 to early 2019. The episodes documented his relationship with Larissa Dos Santos Lima, whom he met on an online dating website. Colt flew to Mexico and Brazil to spend time with Larissa, proposing 11 days after he met her in person. The Brazil native moved to Las Vegas, and the couple tied the knot in the summer of 2018. Colt filed for divorce in January 2019, and they finalized the proceedings in April 2019.
Amid Colt’s relationship drama with Larissa, Debbie often interfered in their marriage and made her feelings about her daughter-in-law known. However, the matriarch was not thrilled when Colt moved on with girlfriend Jess Caroline either.
“I don’t think Larissa is evil. I mean, I don’t think she is not,” Debbie exclusively told Us Weekly in July 2020. “She’s a different type of person, and she can’t help some of the things that she does and … it’s just the way she is. She can’t help it, but I think Jess just has a plan.”
Debbie seemed more approving of Colt’s wife, Vanessa Guerra. After the pair announced their engagement in May 2021, Vanessa shared that Debbie was “super happy” about it.
“I was nervous about that one,” Vanessa told Us at the time. “I was like, ‘Oh, what’s she going to think?’ She was very, very happy.”
Colt added that his mom “had some reservations” before he proposed to Vanessa, but she was “very, very happy” once the duo were engaged.
Amid her romance with Colt, Vanessa moved in with him — and Debbie. “We all live here. My mother and Vanessa and I, we share the same house,” he explained to Us in May 2021. “So we’ll see where that goes, but so far so good. We all get along pretty well.”
Vanessa insisted at the time that her dynamic with Debbie only got better after living with her. “Sometimes, you know, Colt gets on my nerves and I’m like, ‘Debbie, let’s go get some lunch or something. Get away from him,’” she joked, as Colt agreed that the women had become “more buddy-buddy.”
Although Debbie and Vanessa started out on solid footing, Colt revealed in January 2022 that he and his wife separated because of his mother’s interference.
“I just feel very smothered because you’re constantly in Colt’s face,” Vanessa told Debbie during the 90 Day: The Single Life season 2 tell-all. “If I need him, you’re in his face.”
Scroll through the gallery below to revisit Colt and Debbie’s ups and downs through the years: