The premise of Netflix's hit reality dating show Love is Blind is wild, to say the least. Thirty people and ten days of speed dating that end in a series of marriage proposalsall without ever seeing each other. So wild, in fact, that it might be less crazy if it was suddenly revealed that the whole show was actually scripted.
As viewers are rushing home from work to watch the couples say "I do" or "I don't" in the season one finale that just dropped on the streaming service, some fans are wondering just that. So, in the end, is Love is Blind real or scripted?
The answer to that question is the same as it is for most reality shows. It's real...to some extent. When it comes to the pairing of the couples and the idea that these couples actually got engaged, this was 100-percent real, producers, contestants, and those who know the couples IRL are saying. In a recent Instagram exchange, Melissa Cuevas, sister of contestant Mark Cuevas, responded to a fan that "none" of the show is scripted, Life & Style Magazine reported.
And in fact, the show is reportedly so real that producers were worried they wouldn't have any couples to follow after the pod portion of the show was finished. "As a producer I was kind of nervous like, is anybody actually gonna get engaged?" series creator Chris Coelen told Entertainment Weekly . "Is anyone going to make it to the altar? And, in the end, we actually had more couples get engaged than we were able to follow on the show."
"They were like, 'We were expecting one or two [engagements], not eight! We set up to film five!'" Love Is Blind contestant Rory also told Women's Health .
But, as with all reality shows, you have to consider both how big of a role producers played in the contestants' decisions and how heavily edited these shows are. (Hey, they've got to keep you tuning in somehow.) As fans can see in the Love Is Blind finale , producers do help coax contestants into certain conversations by asking specific questions in order to keep the drama moving.
That said, forcing someone to get married who doesn't really want to seems outrageous even for reality TV. In the end, you might have to put away your cynicism and believe that love may actually be blind, after all.