Former Love Is Blind contestants have described the allegedly “unsafe” working conditions they faced while filming the show, with multiple stars opening up about panic attacks and poor mental health they experienced on set.
Although Love Is Blind is currently one of Netflix’s most popular reality shows, many former stars have now opened up about their negative experiences filming for the show while speaking to Insider.
Danielle Ruhl, who got married to Nick Thompson during season two of the show, said that she underwent a psychological screening before filming. However, she confessed that she felt like she shouldn’t have passed the screening, as she claimed she’d discussed her history of mental illness and previous attempted suicide.
“Looking back I’m like, they are only doing that to check the box,” she said. “They didn’t care.”
Speaking to Insider, contestants also said that they sign a contract which allegedly states that appearing on the show could expose their “personal, private, surprising, defamatory, disparaging, embarrassing, or unfavourable” information. The document also allegedly warns contestants they could be subject to “public ridicule, humiliation or condemnation” due to their appearances on Love Is Blind.
Ruhl also shared how producers allegedly responded to her mental health challenges while filming, specifically during her post-engagement trip to Mexico with Thompson, with the former reality star recalling panic attacks on set.
According to Ruhl, when she was left alone in a hotel room after producers were concerned she had Covid-19, she confessed that she started to feel more anxious. Along with being worried about her absence on the show, she felt stressed because she had recently told Thompson about a traumatic experience from her past.
She said that she then experienced a panic attack in her closet, where she’d gone in order to make sure she wasn’t on camera. Ruhl claimed that when Thompson returned, he tried to tell producers that he and his then-fiancée did not want to be on the show anymore. She also reportedly told producers that she was struggling with her mental health and did not want to keep filming.
“I kept telling them: ‘I don’t trust myself,’” she said. “‘I’ve tried committing suicide before. I’m having suicidal thoughts. I don’t think I can continue in this.’”
However, she claimed that producers kept telling her to stay and said things like: “You’re the love story,” or “you’re Lauren and Cameron,” referring to season one couple Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton, who got married during their finale.
Speaking to Insider, Thompson said contestants weren’t offered proper mental health services throughout filming or after it, despite intense scrutiny contestants often face when the show airs.
“You thrust us into this situation without any support, and everything’s amplified,” he said. “It literally ruins lives.”
A season one contestant, Brianna Holmes, also revealed that she had a panic attack in the pods, after the man she was dating through a wall said that he was skeptical about marrying her.
She recalled the experience to Insider, with Holmes revealing she exited the pods in Atlanta while shaking and sobbing. However, she claimed that producers and film crew continued to follow her.
“They literally chased me off of the set to the trailers, cameras in my face,” Holmes said. “I’m like, this is too much. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this.”
She confessed that she left the show that day amid the pressure to get engaged to a stranger in less than two weeks. “It’s a lot,” she explained. “None of it was scripted. Everything you see is real. These are people’s real lives and real emotions.”
Along with mental health challenges, multiple contestants claimed that they weren’t offered enough food or water when filming. Ruhl alleged food would run out in the women’s living quarters.
“I remember every time we’d get to the freaking kitchen, there’d be like one hard-boiled egg and it was like a fight to see like, who could actually get the stuff,” she said.
The comments echoed season two contestant Jeremy Hartwell’s lawsuit against the Netflix show, which was filed in July 2022. In the legal document, he claimed that cast members were only given “alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, energy drinks and mixers” and that “hydrating drinks such as water” were limited.
The lawsuit also claimed that, through a “combination of sleep deprivation, isolation, lack of food and an excess of alcohol all either required, enabled or encouraged” by the Love Is Blind team, it created “inhumane working conditions and altered mental state for the cast”.
Kinetic Content issued a statement to The Independent regarding the lawsuit last year, in which the firm said there was “no merit” to Harwell’s claims and that the company would “vigorously defend against” them.
Speaking to Insider, Hartwell claimed that, when he contacted Kinetic’s talent-relations manager, Erin Page, in February 2022, he was told that his complaints were being taken seriously. However, he alleged that a month after this conversation, someone from Kinetic’s legal counsel called him and denied his claims.
Contestants also reiterated Harwell’s comments about rest, claiming that they weren’t given enough hours to sleep when dating in the pods. The pods stage was a total of 10 days, with cast members required to film up to 20 hours a day. The filming schedule included dates, confessional interviews, and talking to other contestants in the living quarters.
“The sleep deprivation was real,” season one contestant Danielle Drouin said. “I feel like they do it on purpose because they’re trying to break you. They want you on your edge.”
After dating in the pods, couples return to their hometowns and live together, before saying “I do” or “I do not” at the altar.
In his lawsuit, Hartwell also alleged that Love Is Blind stars weren’t properly compensated for their time on the show. He claimed castmates are paid $1,000 per week, up to $8,000 for the length of filming the show. He claimed that production paid them “less than half of the applicable minimum wage rate of $15 per hour” in California, despite the cast working up to 20 hours a week.
He added that contestants couldn’t leave the show “until filming was done” or else they’d have to pay “$50,000,” which could have caused them to “fear” the showrunners.
According to some former stars who spoke to Insider, when they left Love Is Blind, they struggled to return to their everyday lives, with Holmes alleging she quit her job as a mental-health counsellor because it reminded her about her time on the Netflix show.
She also acknowledged how disappointed she was about not getting any screen time, as she didn’t get engaged on the show. “It made it feel like everything I went through was for nothing,” Holmes said. “I wasn’t good enough to make it more than 30 seconds on the show? It was like a smack in the face.”
Thompson claimed that, after filming ended and when his season premiered, Kinetic didn’t keep in touch with him and that he only got a few calls from a mental health professional, hired by Kinetic, who asked him how he was doing. When he told them that he wasn’t good or that his marriage was ultimately “falling apart,” he claimed that the professional would respond with: “Okay, let us know if you need anything.”
“It felt like checking a box,” he said, alleging that he asked people at Kinetic to connect him with marriage therapists. “I literally begged for help, and I didn’t get it. Like, I want to fix my marriage that you’ve thrust us into for profit. And it was nothing.”
Thompson also said that when the news broke in August 2022 that he and Ruhl had divorced, he received messages from people online who called him “abusive” and questioned his sexuality. “It was brutal,” he said. “That’s when I started to crumble mentally.”
Meanwhile, Ruhl confessed that she’s been working on improving her mental health since filming wrapped. She also noted that she attended trauma therapy after her experience on Love Is Blind. “I don’t think that I’ve felt myself since before filming,” she said. “I’m trying to refind who I am because it f***ed with me so much.”
Although Netflix didn’t respond to Insider’s request for comment, Kinetic Content said in a statement to the outlet: “The wellbeing of our participants is of paramount importance to Kinetic. We have rigorous protocols in place to care for each person before, during, and after filming.”
The Independent has contacted representatives for Kinetic Content and Netflix for comment.
