Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the many Love Is Blind fans left furious after technical difficulties caused a delay in the livestream of the reunion special on Sunday 16 April.
The season four reunion special hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey was set to stream on Netflix from Los Angeles at 8pm ET/5pm PT on Sunday evening. Fans tuned in as early as 10 minutes before the reunion started by clicking the “Watch Live” feature on Netflix, where they were placed in a waiting room – only for the live reunion special to begin nearly one hour later.
Many fans, including AOC, were left outraged because of the delay.
“Someone call Lucia the seamstress to fix this. I believe in her,” tweeted the representative for New York’s 14th congressional district on Sunday night. Her tweet was in reference to the season four finale of Love Is Blind, in which cast member Brett Brown needed some last-minute tailoring on his wedding suit just hours before his wedding to Tiffany Pennywell. Netflix even retweeted AOC’s tweet.
AOC wasn’t the only famous figure to share their frustration with Netflix’s technical difficulties. Queer Eye star Karamo Brown live-tweeted his restlessness while waiting for the reunion to air. “Been on my couch for the last 30 years, waiting for this love is blind reunion! This is a mess!” he tweeted.
Desperate Housewives alum Eva Longoria took to Twitter on Sunday night to remind viewers that her Hulu docuseries, Searching for Mexico, was “on and on time.”
Fellow streaming platforms and former rivals also poked fun at Netflix’s embarrassing live-stream blunder. Blockbuster, which famously closed its stores due to competition with online streaming services, threw some shade at Netflix’s attempt at the live reunion special. “Remember renting vhs’ from us. You could start it on time no problem,” the account for Blockbuster tweeted. “This is what we get.”
Fellow video rental company Redbox chimed in, writing: “solidarity, bro”
Meanwhile, the Bravo network, which hosts multiple reunions for each season of its Real Housewives franchises, tweeted that they “would never keep you waiting for a Reunion”. As for Hulu, the streamer simply tweeted a picture of actor Kerry Washington in the Hulu original, Little Fires Everywhere, along with the caption: “Hmm.”
The Love Is Blind reunion brought together cast members from season four of the hit reality series, as they answered questions about this season’s drama and revealed their relationship statuses. Here’s some of the most shocking moments from the live reunion special, in case people changed the channel after waiting for more than an hour.
Following the outrage, Netflix issued an apology for the delay. Taking to Twitter, Netflix issued a statement. “To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” the statement said. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”
Cast members from season four also took to the social media platform to joke about the delay. Marshall Glaze tweeted, “I’m trying yall,” along with a meme of someone studying an array of wires. Nick and Vanessa Lachey went live on Instagram from the set to try to entice viewers to stay on, indicating the delay was a technical issue in a post thanking fans for being patient and captioned: “Apparently we broke the internet!”
“This is so 2023,” Vanessa said.
Netflix later announced that the reunion will continue to be filmed live, but it won’t be available to stream globally until the following day. On 17 April, fans can watch the Love Is Blind season four reunion at 3pm ET/12pm PT.
