Brooks Nader is setting the record straight.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Nader explains the status of her relationship with former Dancing with the Stars partner Gleb Savchenko. The Sports Illustrated model, 27, says after her divorce from Billy Haire earlier this year, she is focusing on enjoying her time with Savchenko without putting a label on it.
“It is all real,” she clarifies. “And the TikTok thing, those little rebuttals and back and forth were all real because we were a little bit broken up — not that we’re like, there’s no defining what we are — but he sent me that text and he started this whole TikTok thing. So I was just going back at him and it was just kind of funny and funny banter, but we weren’t speaking. We were just TikToking, which is hilarious. Not speaking, no speaking terms, and then we rekindled.”
“Listen, he’s such a great person and a great guy and I’ve loved getting to know him and I’m having fun hanging out with him,” she adds.
Ahead of the DWTS finale, where the two danced to “Reunited” by Peaches & Herb, Nader went on a TikTok livestream and read aloud the text Savchenko, 41, sent breaking up with her after they got eliminated from the competition. She says because Savchenko took their relationship to social media, she wasn’t holding back.
“I know it seems like everything’s out and I’m airing out all my business all the time, but there’s so many parts of it that I don’t talk about that I keep really secret and private, which relationships typically I do not,” she shares. “I mean, I’m newly single, let’s be real, but I’ve tried to be private about who I’m seeing, but this one was like he kind of asked for it because he started this whole thing. So I was like, ‘Oh, if you want to post these FaceTime secret recordings of me and whatever, I’m going to tell everyone what you actually did. The truth.’”
She laughs: “I’m like, ‘Sorry, you made your bed.’”
Despite them making amends, Nader says she has continued to poke fun at the situation because “I’m a businesswoman.” She recently did a partnership with Samsung, where the ad showed her blowing off Savchenko’s breakup text and upgrading her phone.
“That was really crazy because it was so real,” she jokes. “He did break up with me over text randomly and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this would be great. Let me upgrade everything including my phone and let’s just make a commercial out of it.’”
When they first met, Nader — who was married to Haire for four years — admits she and Savchenko had immediate chemistry.
“We immediately had a great connection and I think that spark was there from day one, which was amazing because I looked forward to going to work every day because he was there and it was just an exciting thing,” she recalls. “And then of course you get so close with that person throughout the season, no matter how long you’re in the season, because you’re so intimate with them, you’re practicing six to seven hours a day, seven days a week.”
“You’re really with them all the time, and so they learn everything about you. You learn everything about them, and it’s such an intimate experience regardless,” she continues. “And so there was a build to it as well, but there was a spark immediately.”
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As for what’s to come, Nader says she isn’t tying herself down. She plans to go between her places in New York City and Los Angeles while working on some projects both alone and with her sisters, and she will see where dating fits into that as she goes.
“Hopefully I’m not going to be single for forever,” she jokes. “And so I’m 27, I’m newly single, I was meant to work with Gleb all day for seven hours. If I want to hang out with him outside of it, I’m going to do it. I just started this new thing of, I’m just going do what I want.”
She later adds: “There’s a lot of fun things in the works right now.”
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