[Lauren Speed-Hamilton, who found love on Season 1, says 85
percent of the ‘Love Is Blind’ couples are “forced.”]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

NICK LACHEY RESPONDS TO CLAIM THAT ‘LOVE IS BLIND’ EDITS BLACK
WOMEN OUT: ‘FAIR OBSERVATION’  
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Emily Leibert
November 4, 2022
Jezebel
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_ Lauren Speed-Hamilton, who found love on Season 1, says 85 percent
of the ‘Love Is Blind’ couples are “forced.” _

Nick Lachey, left, and Lauren Speed-Hamilton., Photo: Alexander
Tamargo/Gonzalo Marroquin (Getty Images)

 

On Netflix’s deranged hit reality show
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co-hosts and weirdo couple
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and Vanessa Lachey insist that “love is blind.” But after the
October premiere of its third season, it appears love, at least on
this particular show, may also be a middle-aged white lady who, finger
quotes, doesn’t see color.

Last month, after audiences watched a number of absolute strangers
propose to each other sight unseen, Season 1 contestant Lauren
Speed-Hamilton had some words for the show’s producers regarding its
diversity baiting. “I don’t like how LIB be cutting all the black
women. How come they are always in the trailer but not the show,”
she tweeted
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“I know it’s slim pickings but about 85% of them couples be forced
(just moving forward for entertainment purposes) anyway. Y’all could
at least force some more sisters to move forward throughout the
show.”

On Wednesday, in an interview
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Tonight_, Nick Lachey said Speed-Hamilton’s comment was “a fair
observation” and admitted he “understand[s] where she’s coming
from with it.” But he said he’s “not sure what exactly you can
do about that except continue to cast with diversity, which they’ve
done.” This response feels reminiscent of a handsy grandpa admitting
he rubbed some shoulders and gave some potentially line-crossing hugs,
but he sees you and hears you and will try to do that less, although
he’s not really understanding why being handsy is a problem in the
first place.

“People gravitate to who they gravitate to,” Lachey continued.
“That’s not something that producers or anyone else can dictate or
strip or have dictated or stripped. People make connections in the
pods for whatever reason, and those connections are then followed
through to the rest of the season.”

Although Lachey appears to be suggesting that the show doesn’t force
couples to continue in the process, he didn’t directly address
Speed-Hamilton’s claim that there are other couples on the show who
get engaged and aren’t shown on television. This season, in
particular, there were five additional Black women
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on the show who were shown in the Season 3 trailer
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screen time on the actual show, let alone named or on a pod date. “I
think they only show what they deem most entertaining,”
Speed-Hamilton said, claiming that producers send those couples
“home and stop filming them.”

“I think that all you can do in terms of being in the show and being
in the casting department is casting fairly and with great diversity.
I think that they’ve done a good job of trying to do that,” Lachey
said. “How it plays out, I can’t really answer to that part of it
other than I know it’s not dictated or manipulated... who moves
forward. It’s really, truly the connections they make blindly in the
pods.”

While the show has admittedly succeeded in casting a racially diverse
set of initial contestants (this season’s Raven Ross, who is half
Black, made it through to the second half of the show), fans are still
waiting for their next unapologetic Black love story
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season, producers chose to give far too much air time to ballet
dancer Colleen getting dumped over and over again
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when they could’ve allowed audiences a chance to get to know the
five other Black women who went essentially anonymous in the
background. So, sure, maybe love really can be “blind.” But
production’s decisions on this show clearly aren’t.

* Racial equity
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* black representation
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* reality tv
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* diversity
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* Black Women
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* love is blind
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