Love Is Blind star Shane Jensen has apologised to ex-fiance Natalie Lee for gaslighting her during the show.
The hit Netflix reality show sees 30 men and women spend 10 days in “pods” dating each other and ultimately proposing to one another if they form a connection.
Only once a proposal has been made and accepted are the couples allowed to see each other. Then, they move in together and decide if they want to marry each other at the end of the season.
In the reunion episode for season two, co-host Nick Lachey addressed Jensen, saying a big moment during the season was when he went into one of the pods and thought he was speaking to Shaina Hurley rather than Lee. When Lee corrected him, he proceeded to make Lee feel like she was in the wrong.
Latched added: “Instead of apologising for that mistake, your response was to kind of turn around and just gaslight her.”
Jensen replied: “Yes, 100 per cent. That was easily the biggest mistake I made on the show. I played the victim card right away and tried to defend myself.
“That was, you know, as a man that was not what you want to do. I just felt personally attacked because we’re listening through a tiny little microphone through a wall. You hear it differently. But I definitely 100 per cent regret and I’m honestly ashamed of the fact that I just went straight into attack mode.”
Jensen continued by saying he “really wished” he had just let Lee speak and in retrospect, he felt that the situation was “embarrassing”.
“It was a tough situation I was in but it’s no excuse for what happened,” he added.
Fan favorite Lee ultimately chose not to marry Jensen at the end of the season, citing a fight the couple had the night before where Jensen apparently said he “hated her” and she was the “worst thing to have happened to him”.
During the reunion, Jensen was also asked why he decided to make Lee his girlfriend while he was still dating Hurley.
“I got caught in the moment of the situation,” he explained. “I felt like I needed to and I wanted to I guess, assert her like this is where I stand and whatnot. And that’s the way I did it. I should not have said that either.”
Responding to Jensen’s comment, Lee said she “definitely felt betrayed” by both Jensen and Hurley.
“The fact Shayne said if you told me two days earlier, it could have been potentially different, that’s not something … it’s not something he was telling me,” Lee added.
“I felt like, by the last set of days he assured me it was just going to be me. It was only me. So seeing that there could have been a change if he explored another connection was really hard.”
The Love Is Blind reunion also saw fellow contestant Shake Chatterjee defend the sizeist comments he made on the show, including asking women in the pods questions specifically to do with their weight, like whether they could sit on his shoulders and if they exercised.
Chatterjee, who was left at the altar by Deepti Vempati, said he “stood by” the comments he made.
