When Love Is Blind premiered, viewers wanted to know if falling in love without ever seeing someone's face was actually possible. It turns out that it was as there are two couples who did get married.
A lot has come out about the popular reality show since, from what the cast members were paid to the true story behind Jessica and Mark's tense romance.
What was it really like starring on love Is Blind? Let's take a look at what some cast members have said about the experience.
One Cast Member's Experience
Fans want to know if Love Is Blind was actually authentic and they also have a lot of questions about the making of the show.
In an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit, a cast member named Andy shared his experience on Love Is Blind and answered questions from curious fans.
When asked about taking time away from jobs to film the show, Andy said that it was up to six weeks: "a couple weeks for some of us. I think 6 for others."
When asked about what the cast members were shocked about, Andy said, "Honestly the editing surprised us the most. But the vacay stuff and after was new to most of us."
It sounds like while the contestants knew that they could meet someone while chatting in the pods and get engaged, they weren't told that they would get to go on vacation or live in the same apartment if they got to continue on the show.
Being In The Pods
It definitely seems like talking in the pods was a great time and Amber Pike, who married Matt Barnett, told The Guardian that was a positive experience, and when she and Barnett were married, things were a bit different.
Pike said, “When we were in the pods it was very ‘rose coloured glasses. Once we were married and the honeymoon phase ended, the challenges of trying to build our relationship and make it stronger became a reality, and it hasn’t always been easy.”
Lauren Speed, who married Cameron Hamilton, told Refinery 29 that she and Cameron had a great bond in the pods. She said, “For Cameron and I, I feel like we opened up right away. Even though we were in a pod, it was still like we were there with each other.”
Cameron shared that the pod dates were arranged for the cast members: he said, "“The dates were organized for us and we would rate at the end of the day who we liked the most and the least. [The producers] would then use those rankings to figure out dates for the subsequent days. As the days went on, the length of the dates went longer but the number of people you saw got shorter.”
Refinery 29 also reported that the cast members were able to ask for what food and alcohol they wanted to enjoy while they were filming the show.
The Engagements
It turns out that eight couples got engaged, according to Buzzfeed News, and Rory Newbrough, who appeared on the show and proposed to Danielle Drouin, explained that the producers didn't think there would be so many successful love connections.
Rory told People, “As we were preparing to go to the Mexico trip, the leads of the show came in and said, ‘Hey, we were expecting maybe one or two [engagements]. The shows we’ve done before, we’ve never had this much success. We prepared for five. Then we got eight engagements, so we had to pick who we were going to follow.' We got our phones back. They thanked us graciously and said, ‘Sorry, we just don’t have enough to cover everybody.’”
Wbur.org reported that Danielle and Rory didn't end up getting married after all.
Amber Pike has always been honest about her time on Love Is Blind and fans remember that while she and Matt Barnett bonded and had great chemistry immediately, they had some tough times, too. According to Cheat Sheet, she wasn't working while filming the show and she also had $20,000 in debt.
Amber explained to Entertainment Tonight that she went through a difficult period in her life and she and Barnett made it through. Amber explained that she had an abortion and suffered from depression, and then she left school.
She said that when she was cast on Love Is Blind, she was working on her mental health and "slowly building my life together." She explained, "I think people missed the fact that I was working on bettering myself not expecting somebody else to make me better.”