‘Love Is Blind’ Executive Producer Says ‘We Just Need Nice Men’

It’s been five years since Love Is Blind debuted on Netflix back in February 2020, becoming a pandemic-era sensation. Over that time, the show has remained a phenomenon but changed in many ways, some intentional, some a function of major cultural shifts that have taken place over that time. On Sunday, Love Is Blind streamed its Season Eight reunion, hosted as usual by Nick and Vanessa Lachey. Filmed a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, the episode addressed the season’s hot topics: how Daniel Hastings and Taylor Haag were the only couple from this season to get married; the role that politics and social issues played in the demise of both Virginia Miller and Devin Buckley’s and Sara Carton and Ben Mezzenga’s relationships; and how Lauren O’Brien’s ex-fling drove a wedge between her and her former Love Is Blind fiancé Dave Bettenburg. It also featured some new elements: There was a surprise engagement between cast members from different Love Is Blind shows, a musical performance by singer-songwriter Alex Warren, and even cameos from two NFL players.

Ally Simpson, executive producer of Love Is Blind and executive vice president of current programming at the show’s production company, Kinetic Content, tells Rolling Stone that she and co-executive producer and show creator Chris Coelen have started to reimagine the reunion as an opportunity to do more than just rehash that season’s events. 

“Early on, reunions were these standard catch-ups, and oftentimes there’s some drama with the couples who haven’t worked out,” says Simpson, who’s worked with Coelen over the past decade across Kinetic shows including Married at First Sight and Seven Year Switch. “But we’ve really had a conscious shift in recent seasons, because we think this should be a celebration. Of course, it doesn’t work out for all the couples, but we’ve tried to make the reunion more and more of an event each season.”

Here, Simpson discusses how they pulled off the Season Eight reunion, the impact social media and outside influences have on the Love Is Blind couples, and why cast members’ politics have become bigger deal-breakers in recent seasons.

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Which moments stand out to you from filming Season Eight?
I would say the moment Daniel and Taylor had their reveal. It was late at night after the reveals, and every single season, once we finish the reveals, we go up to the different hotels where the men and the women are staying. I meet with the women and [Chris] meets with the men. We say, “Let’s talk about how you’re feeling and if this is right for you.”

In that interview, where Taylor is sitting in her hotel room talking about how she thinks she might know Daniel from Instagram, she’s talking to me on the other side of the camera. She wanted to talk to him in person. So he came to the hotel and met with her. We have never had a situation like this, and I felt like, “What can we do to support them and what can we do to help them potentially move past this?” So we said, “Do you want to look at your phone and check your Instagram?

When they were waiting to get the WiFi password, they both said into their microphones, “Bueller” at the same moment, and they just started dying laughing. At that moment Taylor was like, “What am I doing?” and it just hit her. I think you sometimes think [in romances], this is too good to be true, there’s got to be something wrong with this. But Daniel is one of the best human beings and one of the nicest guys I have ever met. He’s so wonderful and he just sat there with her so patiently. 

They had this 20-to-30-minute conversation at the hotel, and they said they weren’t sure if they wanted to go to Honduras or not. We told them it didn’t matter, and we have more couples than we can even follow; they should decide what they want to do, but we strongly believe the experiment only works if you see it all the way through, because we provide so much guidance. We’ve seen a lot of couples go off and try to do it on their own and it doesn’t work. With Taylor and Daniel, we were hoping they would go, but it’s up to them. So I said, “Do you guys want to go to lunch off camera?” They were like, “Can we?” And at the wedding, Daniel said, “I think if we didn’t have that lunch, I don’t know what would have happened, because we kind of needed that.” There’s a lot of rumors out there about [behind the scenes of] the show, but it’s really a few of us who care so much about these people trying to provide the right support. I think a moment like that is real evidence of the show’s support for couples.

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At the reunion, viewers see a video clip of Love Is Blind alums AD Smith, from Season Six, and Ollie Sutherland, from Love Is Blind: U.K., getting engaged, after they’d met on the not-yet-released Season Three of Perfect Match. How did the surprise proposal come about?
We love AD so much, and we knew how serious their relationship had gotten. Because they were already on that track and knew Ollie was already thinking about proposing, we asked him if he wanted to do it at the reunion. He was like, “No, it’s important to me to have a more private moment and not have an audience of people.” But he loved the idea of having a record of it. We helped him come up with a plan to get her out to the beach so he could surprise her. We told her we’re going to do this Perfect Match promo. We had been talking to Ollie for at least two months, but we actually pulled it off the week before the reunion taped. We said that we wanted some B-roll of them walking down the beach, so they were able to walk away and have a private moment while we filmed on a long lens; it was an intimate two-camera crew. Ollie sent us photos of what he wanted the setup to look like, he was heavily involved in that. AD was so funny after the fact — she was like, “It was freezing cold, and I was so annoyed they’re dragging me out here, Perfect Match is months away.” She was so surprised. We care about AD so much and it was very important that Ollie felt he was proposing organically, on his terms, and that he wanted that just for his relationship. It should have nothing to do with pressure coming from the show to do that. 

For the first time there was also a musical performance — Alex Warren sang his single “Ordinary.” How did that come about?
This season we added a lot of popular music, which we hadn’t been able to do in the past. Chris and I talk a lot about how the show is a hit and the format works, but you’re constantly thinking, “How can we elevate?” Music was the natural next step. I think there’s over 30 popular songs in this season, so then it was this organic continuation at the reunion. Whether it’s Saturday Night Live, a late-night talk show, or the Super Bowl, having that musical element creates this other piece that people get really excited about. 

Alex is with Atlantic Records and we have a good relationship with all the labels but Atlantic specifically seemed to get it early on that if we have music in Love Is Blind, it will get traction for those artists. Atlantic had been providing us with a lot of music and when we said we want to do a musical performance at the reunion, we knew Alex is one of their artists who was heading out on a European tour and has a new album. They sent us his song, which he had written for his wife, and it was perfect. There couldn’t have been a nicer person for our inaugural performance. We wanted to really put the effort in to make sure that it popped, that it was a noticeable, big element of the reunion. Moving forward, we want people to want to perform with us.

In the last five years, Love Is Blind reunions have evolved a lot. Back in 2023, the Season Three reunion was supposed to be live, but there were technical issues. Would you ever

want to revisit the concept of a live reunion?
Netflix produced that one with a live team, it wasn’t produced by Kinetic. In the future, it’s not something I would really push for. I come from a place of wanting the participants to feel like they have the chance to say everything that they want to say and sometimes that means letting them breathe and take their time to think about what they want to say. There’s a pressure that comes with doing it live. These are normal, real people, and I think it’s an unfair pressure to put them under them. I don’t think it’s necessary. We want to be good partners with Netflix, and we’re always open to discussing, but I don’t think it’s the best fit.

Only one couple got married this season — Taylor and Daniel. It seems like fewer people are saying yes at the altar on the show. Why do you think that is?
We have had seasons like Season Four in Seattle, where you have three couples who say yes, and that’s incredible. We love love, so the more people we can help find their partner, the better. But I also think it’s incredible when you look at Taylor and Daniel and you go, these two people found each other out of 30 total cast members and that’s remarkable. So having more than that is mind-blowing. That’s not a measure of success for us. It’s an experiment, and what we always say is, there is zero pressure to say yes to getting married. We say, “We want you to have all the information so when you get to the altar, you make the right decision for you.”

From a cynical producer position, if the viewer gets to the last episode, they’ve watched the whole season and it doesn’t matter if you say yes or no. Our job is to tell great stories all the way to the altar. Once you get to the altar, make the decision that’s right for you, because we don’t want divorces. We don’t want people getting married who shouldn’t get married. I think those other couples this season had a ton in common. Even when they were in Honduras on the getaways, I remember the executive producer down in the field called me and said, “I think this season we might have all the couples say yes.” That’s how good we felt about them on the getaways. And then the real world got in the way. They were good matches but they simply weren’t each other’s person. I think the people who should be together are together. It’s always been that way every season. 

At the reunion, when Dave was talking about the guy who put himself in the middle of his relationship with Lauren and has since posted about the couple on social media, he said, “They warned us about people like this.” Do you warn cast members about people outside the show potentially clout chasing?
We do a social media training of what to expect in terms of both haters but also people latching on and trying to get their five minutes of fame out of your very heartfelt, earnest journey. We talk to them about how to manage that, what to look out for, and we tell them we’re there but there’s only so much we can do to manage the insane world of social media. TikTok wasn’t what it was in those early days of Love Is Blind, but the haters were certainly there. People from Seasons One and Two had to deal with a lot of social media backlash, and it’s unfortunate, because they really are being vulnerable and putting it all out there. With Dave and Lauren, it’s nuts that this guy would go to this length to insert himself. I hope he’s able to see they had a real, genuine connection and he messed with that, and that’s not cool. 

Political and social issues have come up on the show before but this season two women didn’t say yes at the altar mainly because of their partners’ politics. Do you think that’s reflective of the cultural moment we’re in?
It’s always something that’s come up, even going back to Nancy and Bartise on Season Three, when there was a big abortion conversation. During Season Seven in Washington, D.C., Stephen and Monica talked about politics and Marissa and Ramsey spoke about politics and the military. We work hard to present those conversations as accurately as possible because, of course, the conversation is longer than the scene we show. But we feel a real burden to portray it in the essence of exactly what they were each saying. Those are the kinds of things that make or break relationships and the conversations that have to be had. We take it very seriously that we are able to talk about these important topics in a way that most unscripted shows can’t, and we want to be a reflection of society at large.

I do think in our society at large it’s becoming more and more of a deal-breaker. Chris and I were talking about how, in Season One, you didn’t see people having conversations as often about who they voted for, wanting to know out of the gate, and your answer will determine whether I want to spend five more minutes with you or not, and there’s nothing you could tell me beyond that that makes me think we could stand a chance. 

I think the point of Love Is Blind is really taking the time to get to know as much about your core beliefs as possible. The conversation we’re having with people when they arrive is: We understand there are lines you all have, those are your core values and you are not going to budge on that. What we’re asking you to do is think about your core values, think about why you have those. Is it just because that’s what your parents believed and now you regurgitate that? Is it something in your personal story? You have to think about why you feel so strongly about marrying someone who feels this way or feels that way.

Do you pay attention to fans’ criticisms of the show?
I would be remiss not to. I take it all with a grain of salt, and I think you can tell the people who are being cruel just to be cruel, but we strive to become better and better storytellers because we want to do justice to the journeys that each of these people went on. It does feel like our responsibility to see if things feel accurate and if we did them justice. Sometimes the reunion is our chance to address if someone is being unfairly attacked. We really want them all to leave the reunion feeling like they got a chance to either set the record straight, defend their character, or have the opportunity to say their final piece about something. We heard feedback this season that the show spent a lot of time in the pods and we’re thinking about that as we move forward. We do pay attention, but I think we know how to filter the useful from mean-spirited comments.

What kind of challenges does the show face today that weren’t necessarily concerns five years ago?
We think it is such a cool experience and experiment for people to do, and we want to bring on really quality individuals. We want people to want to do it because we’ve seen it work, and I think the social media aspect does sometimes scare away people who are thoughtful about that. Having couples like Garrett Josemans and Taylor Krause [from Season Seven] and having couples like Daniel and Taylor who are hard-working people with great jobs, who are kind people, and people who come from nice families, go out into the world and say, “It works” shows there are nice people and it’s a nice experience. We just hope to attract as many of those types of people as possible, because we’ve seen it work for them. If you look at the husbands who come from the show, it’s the really nice guys who it works out for. We just need nice men. Sometimes I feel like social media is scaring some nice guys off, so we’ve enlisted the help of some former participants who are big fans and they’ll sometimes get on [the phone] with people before they come [on the show] and answer questions about what’s it’s really like and they’ll put them at ease.