Only a few months after their initial meeting, the star of a Netflix reality show revealed how she wed a prisoner.
Real estate salesperson Laura Gehrke had an earlier appearance on the Netflix series Too Hot To Handle Germany.
The 27-year-old was forced to spend Christmas alone in Dubai last year due to a visa issue that prevented her from returning home for the holiday season.
She was going through her TikTok profile when she came upon a TikTok about writing to someone who was incarcerated.
Laura decided that she was going to wish an inmate ‘Merry Christmas’, and happened upon the profile of 21-year-old Joshua Stewart.
After starting to communicate via text, the two quickly became close and started talking on the phone for hours each day.
Laura ultimately made the decision to fly to the United States to visit Joshua in prison, where he was incarcerated for controlled substance homicide.
Laura recalled getting to know her future husband, saying: “We really clicked. He was just open about everything from the beginning. He was telling me so many stories about his life. I thought he was really emotionally intelligent.”
She explained that she didn’t initially ask him why he was in jail, saying she ‘didn’t want to judge him just based on that’.
“Because I knew the backstory, it didn’t change my opinion of him,” Laura said.
It was after barely six weeks of knowing Laura that Joshua proposed to her.
The couple had 12 meetings, and their prison wedding took place on the 13th in-person meeting.
She said: “It was a prison marriage – one of the other inmates was his best man. We were all in white and had our own colour theme.
“It felt super right. Our families are super supportive. Obviously my mum had questions but she was very supportive.”
Some others expressed their doubts on social media regarding Laura’s recently discovered romance.
A comment was made that said, “Bro just secured his financial future after he’s out.”
“You most definitely got all your priorities messed up,” a second person said.
In contrast, a third person wrote, “He will disappear after release.”
But Laura sent a very clear response to them, saying: “People just look into things with a made-up mind – they can’t believe we married out of love. They just think I’m using him or he’s using me.
“They can’t believe it’s real love. We have a lot of support but we also have a lot of haters.”
Together, the two have a TikTok account (@lorraandjosh), where they have posted a video that has received 8.7 million views.
Joshua is scheduled to be freed from custody in December 2025, subject to house arrest.
