90-Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days, Sunny Mahdi may not have cared about Veah Netherton becoming a Muslim in their relationship. Sunny from South Africa and Veah from Florida met on a dating app a year before filming.
When Veah flew to meet Sunny for the first time, she brought her ex-boyfriend Rory along. This resulted in some infamous fighting between the couple, but the two reconciled in the end.
In the recent episodes of their season, however, Sunny has been pressuring Veah to become a Muslim. This started anytime Veah would interact with people that Sunny knew.
This included his friends and especially his father. We learn that Sunny’s family originally wanted him to marry a Muslim woman. Veah refused to convert and stayed a Christian. Sunny would accept this and propose to her anyway.
90 Day Fiancé: Sunny’s Family Wishes
Before Sunny introduced Veah to his family, there were zero mentions of her needing to convert. The couple had even slept together not long after their first night of meeting.
It’s only when Sunny is confronted by his family that conversion suddenly becomes a need. During each of the meetings with Sunny’s family or friends, he is completely silent and withdrawn. At first, I was under the impression that Sunny was afraid of going against his social circle.
Sunny being afraid would line up with why he rarely mentioned his religion to Veah. Veah is also his first real girlfriend, so he could be feeling more desperate in trying to appease her and his family.
However, this doesn’t excuse any of his actions. Sunny still hid this information from Veah and never stood up for her when it came to his family. This makes Sunny’s acceptance of Veah’s Christianity and lifestyle ring hollow.
90 Day Fiancé: Sunny Is Manipulative
One of the most common fan theories about Sunny is that he is heavily manipulating Veah. When Veah confronts Sunny about sleeping before marriage which is against his religion, he claims that he wanted her to love him first.
This is a huge red flag on his part. Sunny purposefully hid his supposed want for Veah to convert just so he could have a chance at her.
Sunny lets Veah become emotionally invested in him before giving her an ultimatum. Sunny would try threatening a breakup if Veah refused to convert to Islam. However, he never enforces this.
Veah actually stands up for herself while still trying to make their relationship work. I believe that Sunny’s ultimatum was nothing but a bluff. He could’ve just been upset that the conversation with his dad didn’t work on Veah.
Lastly, Sunny quickly accepts Veah for who she is and proposes to her anyway. The ultimatum at the end of the day felt like a waste of time. Sunny states that he hopes for Veah to change her mind, but I just can’t take it seriously.
I think Sunny is more desperate to keep Veah around than he lets on. If anything, he could either be afraid of the disapproval of his family or want to control Veah in the long term.
