Love Is Blind fans are unhappy after the season four live reunion, and not just because it was delayed more than an hour due to technical difficulties. After viewing the live reunion one day later, many fans are sharing their thoughts about co-hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey – and calling for an end to their hosting duties.
Real-life married couple Nick and Vanessa Lachey have been hosts of the hit Netflix reality dating series since it first debuted in 2020. Each season, the 98 Degrees singer and model greet the cast at the start of the social experiment, in which 30 single men and women go on several blind dates in “pods” in the hopes of finding a lasting love connection. The hosts periodically check in with the engaged couples before their wedding day, all leading up to them hosting the reunion at the end of every season.
This year, the Lacheys’ received much criticism from fans during this season’s reunion for their hosting style, with some saying they were “awkward as hosts” and “picked sides” with certain cast members.
This season, it was revealed that couples Kwame Appiah and Chelsea Griffin, Zack Goytowski and Bliss Poureetezadi, and Brett Brown and Tiffany Pennywell were still happily married one year later. Paul Peden and Micah Lussier came face-to-face for the first time since calling it quits, and Marshall Glaze and Jackelina Bonds still had tension between them despite Bonds not showing up to the reunion.
While there was drama between the season four couples from start to finish, many fans believed that Nick and Vanessa Lachey didn’t ask questions that delved deep enough into the drama.
“Nick and Vanessa Lachey are terrible hosts,” one fan tweeted. “She asks all the wrong questions, takes the wrong sides and then goes, ‘time to move on’ before anyone’s answered a single thing.”
“I just once again want to know what crimes Nick and Vanessa Lachey have witnessed for the execs to keep them on payroll,” another asked. “They’re so awkward as hosts and have no chemistry with the cast lol”.
Much like any reality show, there were a handful of so-called “villians” on this season of Love Is Blind. Most notably, Micah Lussier and Irina Solomonova were branded early on as “mean girls” of the show for their “immature” behaviour towards the fellow cast. Jackelina Bonds also received criticism from viewers for breaking up with fiancé Marshall Glaze and going back to her former pods fling, Josh Demas. To make matters worse, Glaze and Bonds were at the centre of a heated social media war after leaked text messages seemingly revealed Bonds’ true feelings about Glaze during the social experiment.
Despite fans pointing out the “villains” of the season, many reunion viewers felt the Lacheys’ didn’t question them hard enough about their behaviour on the show. Rather, it was fan-favourites Peden and Glaze who received most of Vanessa’s heat.
“Watching Vanessa Lachey defend the villains the entire reunion,” one person tweeted.
“Not Vanessa Lachey kiki-ing with Jackie and Josh in their interview and then having an attitude with Marshall during his,” another said. “Like this reunion is a complete joke”.
Perhaps viewers were most angered by Vanessa’s line of questioning when it came to asking the married couples if they’ll start having children soon. While there have been a handful of success stories to come out of Love Is Blind since season one first aired, not one of the seven married couples have yet to welcome a baby.
During the live reunion, there were a number of moments when Vanessa would ask the cast when she can expect her first “Love Is Blind baby”. Each couple dodged questions about their baby plans and instead maintained that they’re focusing on their relationship before bringing a baby into the world.
The line of baby questioning from the Lacheys struck a nerve with many reunion viewers. Some said that the hosts put too much pressure on the married couples to have children.
“It is pissing me off how much pressure Vanessa and Nick are putting on these couples to have babies,” one user tweeted. “It’s 2023 – why are we still questioning people about when they’re having children?! It’s none of your business.”
“I don’t know who forgot to tell Vanessa Lachey that publicly nagging people to have babies is gross and weird and super rude when you don’t know anybody’s potential personal issues,” another pointed out.
Now, it appears that Vanessa Lachey has apologised to a certain cast member after she was accused of having a “personal bias” throughout the reunion. On Monday 17 April, one day after the reunion, the 42-year-old host sent Paul Peden flowers following their heated exchange about his relationship with Micah Lussier.
“Thanks for acknowledging the accidental misleading @vanessalachey,” the 29-year-old reality star wrote on his Instagram story alongside a picture of the bouquet.
Following the live reunion episode, Peden took aim at Vanessa in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. The environmental scientist believed that Vanessa showed her “personal bias” towards him after his post-wedding comments about his ex were revealed, in which he said he couldn’t picture Lussier as a mother.
“I was like, ‘F*** man.’ They kept drilling, drilling it down on me,” Peden told the outlet on Monday. “I think I said my piece. I think Vanessa might have had a little bit of personal bias in that scenario or at least I kind of detected that. I don’t know. But that’s just my assumption based on how she continued to drill into it after I gave my full rationale for why I felt the way that I did.”
Peden added that he felt he “owned as much as I could” of his responsibility in the exchange, and “took responsibility for the full capacity in which I think I was obligated to.”
He went on to say that he didn’t feel he was given the opportunity to fully speak about his experience on the reality dating show, and that the hosts “dismissed” his reasoning for why he decided to reject Lussier at the altar.
“It was framed as, the reason that I said no was that she wasn’t able to fill a mothering role and a nurturing atmosphere and whatever. That was one piece of the puzzle,” he shared. “It was incredibly complex, but that was the answer. That was the reason why. And that’s just a fraction of the story.”
Nick and Vanessa Lachey have yet to address the public backlash following the Love Is Blind live reunion special. However, the model turned off comments on her most recent Instagram post. All episodes of Love Is Blind season four are available to stream on Netflix.
The Independent has contacted Netflix and Nick and Vanessa Lachey for comment.
