Love Is Blind spoilers ahead.
Back in 2020, Netflix debuted its now-famous series Love Is Blind — a dating show that features a bunch of singletons forming emotional connections sight unseen.
With the show aiming to prove that love isn’t dependent on physical appearance, its contestants communicate through “pods” before getting engaged and then finally seeing each other.
Season 1 featured a bunch of seemingly authentic contestants honoring the experiment, with two couples — who are still married today — tying the knot at the altar, and one continuing to date afterwards.
And, as perhaps expected, the show featured its fair share of drama from the jump. However, while fans of reality dating shows often love a bit of chaos, the fifth and current sixth seasons of LIB appear to have sparked more negative reactions than positive, with many viewers expressing their disappointment at the casting and apparent bending of rules by producers.
Amid the current release of Season 6, fans were left shocked last week when current contestant Jeramey Lutinski exposed the show’s casting process by revealing that he was scouted for LIB via Instagram.
Now, it’s not unusual for some dating shows — like Too Hot To Handle and Love Island — to recruit contestants via social media. However, unlike these shows, the whole premise of LIB relies on its contestants forming romantic connections based on their emotional bond as opposed to their looks, meaning that scouting cast members based on their Instagram profiles seems a little silly.
So, when Jeramey publicly alleged that that he’d received a DM from a LIB crew member asking him to go on the show, fans were left super perplexed, and took to social media to question why the series seemingly wasn’t recruiting people with a genuine interest in getting married who’d applied.
In the past, contestants have divulged that the application process for the show was pretty rigorous. Season 2 cast member Deepti Vempati told BuzzFeed of the questionnaire, “It seemed like legitimate relationship questions. It’s not a random dating show, where you're trying to go and hook up with people. It seemed more serious. Obviously, it's marriage!”
And so, Jeramey’s revelation that he’d been approached on Instagram sparked a conversation around just how authentic the contestants are, with the show having clearly seen a rise of people clearly fixated on appearance — and people who simply aren’t prepared for marriage — over the years since Season 1.
Take Season 2 contestant Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee, for example, who sneakily attempted to get around the then-strict no-discussing-of-appearances rule by asking the women in the pods if he’d be able to carry them on his shoulders and whether or not they exercise. Or Season 3’s Bartise Bowden, who repeatedly gushed about how hot his fellow contestant Raven Ross was — even to his fiancée at the time, Nancy Rodriguez.
Then, in Season 5, Jared “JP” Pierce infamously took issue with his then-finacée, Taylor Rue, for wearing makeup the first time he saw her IRL. He suggested that she’d “presented fake stuff” to him by wearing a full face, and Taylor later admitted that she initially questioned her appearance over his controversial remarks.
As for the declining interest in marriage, perhaps the most glaring example was Season 2 contestants Iyanna McNeely and Jarrette Jones. While the pair did end up tying the knot at the altar, they divorced after just a year — something that didn’t surprise many viewers, given how long they’d called out Jarrette’s apparent “red flags” on X (formerly known as Twitter).
In short, Jarrette raised eyebrows over his former emotional connection with separate contestant Mallory, who ended up rejecting him, and his love for going out clubbing — something that Iyanna repeatedly expressed she wasn’t keen on.
After announcing their divorce with a joint statement, Iyanna faced tons of mockery as viewers questioned why she’d married Jarrette in the first place. She later revealed that she “went to sleep crying” after seeing all the negative comments, and explained that she was “hopeful” and “optimistic” that things would work out.
“As much as people laugh at how long we were married, I think my expectations made it real, my hope made it real. My effort made it real, my tears made it real,” she said through tears.
“I’m crying for that girl that I was at the beginning of this marriage,” she continued. “I was so hopeful, and I had less baggage, and I was optimistic, and I was healed.”
“I’m crying for that marriage that I thought could work, I’m crying for that man I believed he was… That man he convinced me he was in the beginning,” she said of Jarrette, later adding that he was “a different man when the cameras stopped rolling.”
Iyanna’s heartbreaking comments perhaps marked the start of the most prominent conversations around the “trauma” that some LIB contestants endure as a result of the show. Viewers began arguing that the series sets people up for “emotional damage under the guise of entertainment,” while others noted that many of the contestants appeared to be going on the show “to get famous” and bag “a quick check.”
In fact, several former contestants have openly discussed the ways in which their mental health was negatively impacted while filming the show. Last April, an exposé published by Insider featured multiple allegations that LIB producers had deprived the cast members of food and sleep, been invasive with filming, and refused to let them quit.
What’s more, some former contestants have filed lawsuits against the LIB producers after their alleged horrific experiences. Earlier this year, news broke that Renee Poche from Season 5 was suing the production company behind LIB, Delirium TV, and Netflix for alleged “unlawful employment practices” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress” after getting engaged to someone she described as a “walking red flag.”
And while LIB certainly has produced some successful relationships, there’s sadly no doubt that the show has gotten less and less authentic since its early days.
But this isn’t just at the fault of the contestants, with many viewers calling out the LIB casting team for not properly vetting people after several from this season were accused of being in secret relationships while it was being filmed.
Jeramey outright confirmed that he had in fact been engaged to another woman shortly before the show began filming after his ex-fiancée and her mom made the news public. A different contestant, Trevor Sova, has also been accused of secretly having a girlfriend while he was on the show. He has yet to publicly address the allegation.
What’s more, the producers have been criticized by viewers after it was made apparent that the show’s previous rule around not discussing appearances in the pods had been scrapped this season.
In recent episodes, multiple contestants have candidly discussed their physical traits, with Kenneth Gorham and Brittany Mills — a Black man and white woman — openly talking about race before seeing each other. Elsewhere, cast member Clay Gravesande told his love interest, Amber Desiree “AD” Smith, that he needed to be “super turned on” by his future wife as he tried convincing her to tell him what she looks like and outright confessing that he naturally dates “petite” women.
The casual discussion of physical appearance left some viewers arguing that the entire experience had been “ruined,” while others questioned why the rule around it had suddenly been ditched.
And fans continued to question the casting choices as they pointed out the apparent lack of interest in marriage in some. In one of the more recent episodes of this season, Clay outright admitted that he didn’t feel he was “mature enough for a marriage” after repeatedly expressing his fear of cheating on AD. In fact, at one point, Clay breaks the fourth wall entirely as he details watching old LIB episodes and comparing his feelings to those of previous contestants’.
One viewer tweeted, “I hope next season, of #LoveIsBlindS6 #loveisblind they don’t go scouting on IG for clout heavy folks that want to become famous versus trying to get married & have a real productive happy ending. I think next season I’m going to take a break from watching my usual dating shows.”
Someone else agreed, “The clout chasers broke #LoveIsBlind,” while another user tweeted, “At this point everyone is on #LoveIsBlind for the clout & fame now.”