Love Is Blind host Vanessa Lachey thinks she knows why there is a lack of body diversity among contestants on the Netflix reality dating series. In an interview with Insider, the actor, who co-hosts Love Is Blind with her husband Nick Lachey, suggested that contestants who aren’t conventionally thin don’t make it past the pod phase on the show due to “insecurity.”
In the first phase of the show’s experiment, men and women are separated in different living quarters and communicate with each other entirely via “pods” which are rooms separated by a wall. They can only hear each other, which theoretically encourages contestants to get to know the person for who they are without thinking about their looks.
The next phase of the show is engagement. When couples feel comfortable with each other, they can exit the pods, meet face to face, and get engaged. Then, the show follows their relationship once they move back home, meet each other’s families and prepare for their wedding (or break up). Once the second phase begins, contestants from the first phase who did not get engaged or find any connection in the pods are not seen again. In the show’s first two seasons, contestants who made it to phase two just so happen to fit into conventional beauty standards.
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Insider asked Lachey why there is such a lack of diversity among sizes on the show. “Their whole life they’ve been so insecure about being themselves because of this crazy swipe generation that we are in and this catfishing world that we’re in, that they’re so afraid to be themselves,” Lachey said of contestants do not fit into conventional beauty standards. “I wonder if they truly don’t have enough time in those two weeks to find themselves and then be themselves to then find that spouse,” Lachey said.
Her comments immediately sparked backlash on Twitter:
