The real story behind an unlikely love affair in America: How I embraced a face transplant survivor and am open to a future together

For Jessica DiMeo, it was one of the most uncomfortable evenings she’d ever experienced.

After appearing on a podcast, she’d been invited to dine with the host and her guests, women she’d never met before.

In an intimate setting, the conversation flowed – but then one of them went too far.

Jessica, a nurse, remembers feeling uncomfortable as someone kept questioning her, asking if she was happy and sure about having children with her partner. She found these inquiries intrusive and inappropriate.

The ‘him’ that the woman was so rudely referring to is Jessica’s husband Joe, 26, the world’s first face and double hand transplant survivor. 

And theirs is a love story so awesome, so life-enhancing that hundreds of thousands of people around the globe have been drawn to follow it.

Today, the couple has amassed over 240,000 followers on their shared Instagram account and around 255,000 on Facebook. Joe has gained a following of almost 226,000 on TikTok, while Jessica has over 370,000 followers.

In November last year, DailyMail.com reported their joyous engagement when Joe went down on one knee outside a New York steak house. 

Recently married, the couple graciously agreed to sit down with us to talk about the highs and lows of their relationship and the exciting future plans they have in store.

They sit close and cozy together, Jessica’s arm looped through Joe’s, on the sofa in their northern ]New Jersey home. The 34-year-old California native never expected to find herself living on the East Coast or wed to a younger man – she generally dated older men, she says. 

But love has a way of upending lives and never more so than in this case.

For readers new to the story, Joe’s life changed forever when he dozed off behind the steering wheel on his way home from a nightshift in 2018. It was a routine journey for the New Jersey resident and he was just 10 minutes from his apartment.

The car hit the curb and erupted in a fireball. He only survived because two passersby pulled him out of the burning vehicle. But by the time he arrived at hospital, 80 percent of his body was covered in third-degree burns – there was virtually no skin left.

Doctors placed him in a medically-induced coma for two months and 20 reconstructive surgeries followed. In 2020, surgeons found a donor – an unnamed man from Delaware – for Joe to receive a face and hand transplant. In August that year, he underwent a grueling 23-hour transplant surgery, with just a six per cent chance of success.

Joe beat the odds and his world-first procedure and long road to recovery attracted international attention online and on social media.

Jessica heard about his ordeal and was among those rooting for him from afar, following him on Instagram. Then, in 2021 he messaged her on Instagram about her Boston Terrier, Kirkland.

He said he had been going through his followers and saw Jessica’s cute little dog – the same breed as his own pet Buster.

In the midst of a grueling recovery and battling to regain his independence, Joe could never have foreseen the consequences of that simple DM.

‘I was kind of just focused on myself after the surgery, and then Jessica came along,’ Joe says, his love for her evident in his voice. ‘Because when you’re not looking for love it comes at you randomly and that’s usually when it’s true love. The right person takes time to find.’

‘The first time he reached out to me, I was a little bit nervous to be honest,’ Jessica admits. ‘I got the feeling you get when you’re like “huh, this is interesting’’.’

After three weeks of easily-flowing text exchanges and Facetiming nearly every day, the spark between them was apparent. They decided to meet in person.

Jessica, who was working in Cleveland, planned to visit a nursing student friend in Philadelphia for a weekend. She and her terrier Kirkland then took a 90-minute drive to Joe’s parents’ house, where he was living.

‘That was a little bit awkward, you know. At that point I was 30 and I’m driving to this guy’s house and he’s eight years younger than me,’ Jessica says.

‘The first thing I said to her was “you’re a lot smaller in person,”‘ Joe recalls.

But her reservations faded as they enjoyed the sunny April afternoon together with their dogs playing in the backyard.

‘We played pool, we got Italian food, we hung out with the dogs,’ Joe says.

‘We talked, we hugged, we kissed,’ Jessica adds.

Jessica says she was hooked by Joe’s confidence and thoughtfulness. He was impressed with her determined, generous and selfless character.

Before returning to Cleveland, Jessica visited Joe to say goodbye.

‘It was really hard…..That kind of solidified my feelings for Joe. I remember the first time we hugged, I just felt so comfortable. I like people that are gentle, not demanding or pushy. I feel like some men can be that way.’

Joe had remembered Jessica’s favorite chocolate – Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – and gave her some for her seven-hour drive home.

It had been a weekend that exceeded all her expectations and Jessica arrived home eager to tell her roommates about Joe – but she was met with skepticism.

‘The [roommate] was like “that’s pretty childlike that he would give you chocolate” and I was just thinking, “oh, you’re such a b*tch!” [because] that was such a nice gesture,’ she laughs. ‘Not all men are thoughtful like that.’

Her family were onboard with her decision to see Joe romantically from the start.

‘They were super-excited. My grandpa’s always been into science. We would always watch autopsy videos together,’ she says. ‘So, when he found out about Joe, he couldn’t stop talking about him. They really like Joe a lot.’

And Joe’s family feels that same way about her.

Their love continued to grow and they began planning their lives together. Jessica got job in New York City and she and Joe moved into an apartment in New Jersey.

In October 2023, they bought a ‘fixer-upper’ house with a spacious backyard and settled in a quiet neighborhood in West Orange.

‘I never thought I would own a home,’ Joe reflects wonderingly – and it really is a home, filled with happy photos from their travels and sentimental knick-knacks, including a baseball they were gifted at a Mets game that Jess wrote ‘J + J’ on.

They joke about their neighbors not knowing their extraordinary story, saying some may think they are making ‘naughty videos’ when they see the camera crews who frequently visit to record the latest updates on Joe’s progress.

With their house purchased, Joe started saving up for an engagement ring. He popped the question in front of the Peter Luger Steak House in NYC in September 2024.

A video posted online of the proposal, taken by Joe’s mother, showed him getting down on one knee in front of a smiling Jessica.

In December 2024, Joe and Jessica flew to Hawaii – their favorite vacation spot – to tie the knot in an intimate ceremony at Magic Island, a stunning beach in Honolulu.

It was really an elopement, Joe explains laughing. ‘It was just us two and then we streamed it online so all the family members [who live on different coasts] could watch it.’

Jessica’s wedding ring was Joe’s great-grandmother’s – and it fit perfectly.

Returning to real life after the honeymoon hasn’t been an issue for either of them.

‘I don’t think there are any challenges to being married…. for us nothing really changed,’ Joe says. ‘I’m just chilling.’

Jessica laughs and rolls her eyes. ‘Nothing new there,’ she quips.

In terms of their daily lives, every day is different depending on Jessica’s work schedule and, of course, how Joe is feeling.

Each day, he drives his wife to the train station and then returns home to do the vital rehab exercises on his hands to develop mobility and flexibility. He cleans the house, walks the dog and works on his own projects.

In keeping with his family’s Italian heritage, Joe loves to cook. Jessica will prep the ingredients if required – cutting vegetables for example which would be difficult for him – in advance, but he usually makes dinner for them.

‘She really likes my sauce – the sauce is from my great-grandma’s recipe box and then I just add a little stuff in there that I like,’ Joe says.

He is currently writing a book about his experience and also owns a fashion brand called 80 Percent Gone, a reference to the extent of his burn injuries. Their garage is a workshop where he designs shirts, hats and other merchandise bearing his signature lion logo, symbolizing strength and resilience.

‘I try to stay busy, but some days I’m just passed out,’ Joe explains.

‘A lot of [Jessica’s] hobbies did come down because of me. Like, I can’t go on her hikes that she likes to do but I try to do little wood hikes.’

Since receiving his double hand transplant, he has suffered from chronic hand pain that makes basic tasks – such as typing on a keyboard – difficult and time consuming.

‘I didn’t get to working conditions that I want because of all the up and down battles with [transplant] rejection and cuts on my knuckles, stuff like that,’ he says. ‘I’m tired of being the tough guy that says “No, it doesn’t really hurt that much” when it actually does hurt.’

Joe’s health challenges have put a strain on their relationship in the past.

He has to be extremely careful of the skin on and around his new face which is highly sensitive. last January he sustained a cut on his neck that quickly turned into a gaping, infected wound.

‘The day he said it was so infected, I didn’t want to go to sleep that night because I was afraid what I would wake up to – it was so bad,’ Jessica says.

The injury was not healing properly because of all the drugs – including immunosuppressants to reduce the chances of transplant rejection – Joe was taking at the time.

Joe began feeling drowsy and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors stopped the drug that was preventing his wound from healing, but this triggered severe withdrawal symptoms.

‘That was so challenging and did test our relationship,’ Jessica says solemnly. ‘During that admission, Joe was like “You could leave me, I would understand if you left,” and that was just crushing. You don’t want to hear that. You don’t want someone to think you’re going to leave them.’

As a nurse, Jessica said she tends to ask vital questions and even challenge what doctors over treating Joe.

‘They wanted to do surgery on [the cut in his neck] and we were able to [avoid that and] heal it at home, so that for me was powerful. Just because they’re surgeons doesn’t mean they know it all.’

Since six-week hospital stay last summer, Joe has been hospitalized two more times. Constant medical attention is the couple’s reality.

But they believe that perseverance is key to a relationship and they build joy into their lives by traveling and celebrating milestones – including their first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, albeit delayed because of Jessica’s work rota. It was on February 16 they dined at the steakhouse, the site of Joe’s proposal.

As for the future, Joe and Jess say they are ready to welcome a child – and maybe another dog or two.

Jessica has always wanted at least one or two kids – ideally three. Getting pregnant ‘wouldn’t be a surprise,’ she laughs.

But other people are not always encouraging. They ‘try to discourage you, saying kids are going to make things even more complicated. And it’s weird, it’s sad.

‘I don’t think it will be an issue with Joe, we’re going to get through it. We’ve already made it through a lot of hospital admissions and that’s the hard part.’

Defying the odds and any doubts cast on their relationship, Joe and Jessica use social media to ‘raise awareness’ about face and hand transplant recovery, as well as give followers an insight into their lives.

‘At first it was just like something cool to do to help motivate people, but then people kept reaching out to us about the relationship and we just kept posting,’ Joe explains.

Their posts are flooded with creative videos about Joe’s health and their relationship, cute pictures from their daily routines and – of course – adorable snaps of their dogs, Kirkland and Buster.

While the general reaction has been positive – Joe estimates about 90 per cent of comments are uplifting – the couple face their fair share of hate.

‘There’s also the downside which definitely gets to Jess the most – it’s the hate comments,’ Joe explains. ‘It’s good that we’re posting, it helps a lot of people, then there’s like the 10 per cent that always hate on her.’

Joe is accustomed to shrugging off rude remarks and criticism. He goes so far as to say he welcomes it because he empathizes with those angry enough to take time out to be nasty on the internet.

‘I also post it for those people too, because the people lashing out are the people that are hurt. So, they have to lash out at something – and that’s what I’m here for.

‘I tell them on TikTok, you can come on here and bash me all you want. It’s won’t hurt me but if it makes you feel better, that’s good.’

But Jessica has a harder time ignoring it, especially when people attack her character or integrity and even question her motivation in the relationship.

‘They say things that aren’t true, they’re so far from the truth. I’m always the hardest working person in the room, so it’s insulting to call me things like a “gold digger” or “attention seeking” or say that I have a ‘’fetish’’.’

But she also recognizes there is a trade-off: the more hate comments on a post, the more engagement generated.

‘If you want to talk sh*t or be mean to me or Joe online, it’s only helping us grow our platform,’ she observes.

But there are boundaries. When an older man commented that Joe looked like a ‘cabbage patch doll’, Jessica took action.

She accessed his profile, found his wife and sent her a message, letting her know what her husband had been up to on social media.

The wife subsequently made her account private and the husband deleted the comment.

Jessica and Joe say they are also fortunate to have a supportive inner-circle of friends and family who are there for them always.

As for that woman who had the temerity – and insensitivity – to ask Jessica if she really[ital] wanted a child with Joe, Jessica was unfazed.

‘I mean, she has a kid but she had the kid with a guy that just got out of prison. So, it’s like, why would I take your opinion to heart?’

They both concentrate on the positive and believe their mission is to spread joy by working to overcome adversity. And certainly, the majority of feedback on social media reinforces that.

‘I’ve had a stomach, bowel and pancreas transplant and feel isolated because it’s such a difficult conversation for people that I feel the need to keep it to myself,’ one individual wrote in response to a video the couple posted on Instagram.

‘Seeing what you’re going through reinforces my understanding that we all have our battles and we deal with it day by day and that I should be grateful that I have the opportunity to hide my health, but you can’t really.

‘So, you’re an incredibly brave and generous person to be sharing your journey with us all.’

An accolade that no doubt Joe believes Jessica is deserving of too.