Jenny Slatten, the 68-year-old fan favorite who has been part of the 90 Day Fiancé franchise since its earliest seasons, revealed Monday that she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in December 2025.
She shared the news in an exclusive interview with People published Monday May 19, alongside her husband Sumit Singh, who has been by her side through every step of the journey from the first frightening symptom to the diagnosis that confirmed what both of them had come to fear.
The request she made to the fans who have followed her story for years was simple and specific. “I don’t want to be treated any different,” Jenny said. “Let’s just live our life as we have been while we can.”
The diagnosis hit with a specific and painful weight that goes beyond the illness itself. Jenny’s father died from ALS years ago.
When the diagnosis was confirmed, Jenny and Sumit held each other and cried, both of them scared, both of them understanding in that moment what the disease had meant to her family before and what it would mean now.
Doctors have said the progression of Jenny’s ALS has been slow. She and Sumit say they are still exploring every possible option.
In speaking publicly about her diagnosis, Jenny says she hopes someone may come forward with information or treatment ideas that could help.
The Symptoms That Started It All
The story of how Jenny’s diagnosis unfolded begins in December 2024, a year before the diagnosis itself, when she choked badly while drinking water.
It was the kind of incident that is easy to explain away once. Sumit noticed. They attributed it to something minor.
Then Jenny had trouble swallowing pills. They thought it might be an infection. She took medication and things seemed to improve.
Then her speech began to slow. That was the moment Jenny could not explain away. “I knew something was wrong,” she said.
In December 2025, Jenny traveled to New York City for a 90 Day Fiancé holiday party and stopped by Swooon’s studio for an interview with Sumit.
Fans who watched that interview began commenting almost immediately that something seemed different, Jenny’s speech was notably slower than they had observed before.
The comments ranged across different theories. Some speculated a stroke. One commenter suggested ALS.
Sumit saw that comment. He looked up ALS. He recognized what he read.
“And then I find out that these symptoms she was having,” Sumit said, “this is what it looks like.”
After returning to India, where the couple has been living together for years, Jenny and Sumit began the process of getting answers. They visited several neurologists.
An initial assessment suggested a small clot in the brain. A second opinion told them something different: Jenny was showing early signs of ALS. The diagnosis was confirmed in December 2025.
“We cried and held each other,” Jenny said of the moment they learned what they were facing.
The Father Who Died From The Same Disease
The cruelest dimension of the diagnosis is the one that Jenny has had to carry her entire adult life even before it became her own story.
Her father died from ALS. She knew what the disease was before the first neurologist mentioned it. She knew what its progression looked like. She knew what it cost.
When the commenter on the Swooon interview suggested ALS as a possibility, Sumit looked it up as someone encountering the disease for the first time in the context of someone he loved.
Jenny already knew. When the diagnosis was confirmed, the knowledge she carried from watching her father, the intimate, specific knowledge of a child who loses a parent to a progressive neurological disease, was present in that room alongside the fear.
She and Sumit cried and held each other. That is what you do when the thing you feared most is confirmed. You hold the person you love and you face it together.
Who Are Jenny Slatten And Sumit Singh?
Jenny Slatten and Sumit Singh are among the most beloved couples in the history of the 90 Day Fiancé franchise, which, given the franchise’s massive and devoted audience, means they are among the most beloved couples in the history of American reality television.
Their story began on the original 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, which follows American citizens who move to their foreign partner’s country for love.
Jenny, originally from Palm Springs, California, moved to India to be with Sumit, a move that came with a 30-year age gap, resistance from Sumit’s family who disapproved of both Jenny’s age and the relationship, and the specific challenges of two people from radically different cultural backgrounds building a life in one of the world’s most complex and beautiful countries.
The specific things that made Jenny and Sumit compelling to watch were the things that make any relationship compelling when it is genuine: the evidence of real love navigating real obstacles, without the performance of perfection.
Sumit’s family did not welcome Jenny easily. The path to their marriage was not smooth. The fights were real. The reconciliations were real. The moment when Sumit’s mother finally accepted Jenny was real.
Season 7 of The Other Way showed them navigating a new chapter, living in the same apartment with Sumit’s parents, a domestic arrangement that produced its own tensions.
The Tell All season episodes ended with questions about their marriage that fans had not anticipated from a couple who had fought so hard to be together. Season 3 of 90 Day: The Last Resort, premiering June 1, 2026, will feature Jenny and Sumit as they continue navigating life together, including everything the diagnosis has introduced.
What Sumit Said About The Diagnosis
The man who was 38 years old when he fell in love with a woman 30 years older than him, who navigated his family’s rejection of their relationship for years, who spent the years of their marriage building a life in India that neither of them had originally imagined, that man now describes loving Jenny through her ALS diagnosis as the thing that has clarified what love actually is.
“Honestly, I never felt this much love, or I can love anyone this much,” Sumit said. “I used to live for myself. But from the last so many years, I feel like doing things for someone who you love gives you happiness. I think that’s what love is.”
He added:
“And that’s why we do things for each other. And that’s what makes each other happy.”
The progression of Jenny’s ALS has been slow, which the doctors have described as a relative blessing in the context of a disease that progresses at different rates in different patients.
Jenny and Sumit are pursuing every possible treatment option.
In going public with the diagnosis, Jenny expressed a specific hope, that someone in the enormous audience of people who have followed her story across multiple seasons of multiple shows might know something, or have access to something, that could help.
Jenny Slatten’s Simple Ask Following Her Diagnosis
The thing Jenny Slatten asked for on Monday is the thing she has always seemed to carry with her through the years that the cameras have been rolling, the determination to be exactly who she is without asking for accommodation or adjustment from the people around her.
She moved to India. She married a man thirty years younger. She lived with her in-laws. She navigated the tensions and the reconciliations and the seasons that ended with question marks.
Now she has ALS, her doctors say the progression has been slow, she is exploring every option, and she does not want to be treated any differently.
“Let’s just live our life as we have been while we can.”
