Jessica Castro, the woman who was legally wed to Ryan De Nino on national television before the two had ever spoken, says she had lost track of him long before he died. The reality TV alum’s death at 40 was widely reported on Friday, August 14, 2026, after a tribute from his sister, Melissa De Nino, surfaced online. No cause of death has been disclosed.
Castro, 42, told Page Six on Friday, August 14, that years had passed since she and De Nino were in touch and that she knew nothing about how he had been living. She offered her condolences anyway, saying she couldn’t imagine what his family was enduring and that she hoped he had found peace — a gentle note from a woman who once needed a security detail because of him.
A Sister’s Heartfelt Goodbye
Melissa De Nino, his sister, had broken the news on Facebook three days before the story spread, on Tuesday, August 11. Her later tribute paired a batch of family snapshots with a portrait of a brother she remembered as devoted and openhanded, the kind of person other people don’t forget.
“Ryan was so damn funny and witty. He was fiercely loyal to those he loved,” she wrote, also describing his enormous heart. She wrote about what it means to lose a person who was there for your earliest memories, and about a sibling bond that stretched back to the very start of her life.
Whatever the two of them had been through across the years, she said, her love for him never faltered — and she added that life as she knows it will never be the same. Friends and acquaintances filled her comments with support, returning again and again to his humor and his warmth. Some called him a guy with real potential and a great heart; others said thinking about him still makes them smile.
His Time on “Married at First Sight”
De Nino became a familiar face through the sophomore season of Lifetime’s “Married at First Sight,” filmed in New York City and premiered in 2015. The premise: a panel of specialists arranges the matches, and the couples are legally married at the altar as total strangers. He was 29 when he was paired with Castro, and when “Decision Day” arrived — the point in the season when each pair announces whether the marriage continues — they both chose to stay in it.
On camera, Castro had talked about why she intended to make it work, pointing to a family full of long, successful marriages and saying divorce simply didn’t fit into her lifestyle. The marriage did not survive long after that. Within weeks of the cameras shutting down, the two split, and their contentious breakup later that year ended things for good.
Castro then went to court for a restraining order, alleging De Nino had made threats against her and her relatives. She also said he had cheated on her during their short marriage.
The two came face to face again at the season two reunion in 2015, and it did not go quietly. Castro flung a $100 bill at her former husband, telling him he needed it more than she did. He picked it up, walked off the set and never responded to what she had accused him of. A live mic then caught him making a threatening comment about her.
Behind the Show’s Matchmaking Process
How badly that match went has stuck to the show ever since. Kinetic Content, the production company behind the series, has said in the past that outside firms put every applicant through exhaustive background and psychological screening before anyone signs on to be legally married on air, and that cameras follow each couple for six weeks once the wedding is over.
The producers have conceded there’s only so much that vetting can do — its experts approach every match with the best intentions and highest hopes, the company has said, but they can’t dictate how cast members behave or control their actions after filming ends. Once the fallout with De Nino began, the production assigned Castro a security team.
His sister is his surviving family. In her account, the version of Ryan that mattered was never the one in the headlines, and nothing that happened between them could sever what they had.