Get a Gold Glass for the Tea on Love Is Blind 's Casting Process
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Originally appeared on E! Online
You won't be able to turn a blind eye to these casting revelations.
Because after six seasons of Love Is Blind, fans can't get enough of all the relationships, breakups and drama that come out of the pods. And, hey, who could blame them?
But have you ever wondered how exactly the stars get on the Netflix show in the first place? Lucky for you, we've found some answers.
As Donna Driscoll, the casting director at Love Is Blind's casting company Kinetic Content, previously explained to IndieWire, after a season's city is selected, her team starts spreading the word and searching for singles through cold calls, social media DMs, and reach-outs to local businesses and churches.
After enough interest has been generated, it's time to start narrowing down the pool of candidates. Donna told the outlet her team talks to about 2,000 people through phone interviews before cutting this number down to 300-400 for Zoom conversations.
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So what do they ask the applicants during these chats?
"Those indicators would be if they've done the work on themselves, healed from past relationships, truly understand what the meaning of love is, or have experienced what it is to love," Donna noted to IndieWire, adding contenders who've made it to the Zoom calls also have to complete a compatibility questionnaire with about 300 inquiries. "It's very detailed, and we have a background check and psych evaluation before anyone moves forward to the pod."
Afterwards, she told the publication, she and her fellow casting directors will accumulate a group of about 60 to 70 people from which they'll make their final selections—with last season featuring 15 men and 15 women for a total of 30.
And Donna and her team clearly know what they're doing. After all, she's received two Emmy nominations in the Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program category for her work on Love Is Blind.
And if you want to know what the stars have shared about the casting process, keep reading.
AD Smith, Season 6
AD—a.k.a. Amber Desiree—could have missed her opportunity to be on Love Is Blind altogether.
As the real estate agent explained, she was working at a nightclub owned by her ex when she was recruited.
“Whoever was on casting scouted me via my Instagram and they went to the nightclub’s Instagram,” AD recalled on an episode of Nick Viall’s podcast The Viall Files. “So they called him looking for me, but obviously they did not know our relationship. So they’re like, ‘Hey, this is such and such, and we’re casting for a dating show.’”
Even though AD and her ex had already split, she continued, he told the recruiter the two were still together. And when she found out his response, she quickly set the record straight.
“I was like, ‘Give me her number right now,’” AD said. “‘Cause we were broken up for a very long time.”
Clay Gravesande, Season 6
As for her former fiancé Clay, he said he was also recruited through Instagram.
“I just got a DM from one of the casting directors,” the entrepreneur shared with radio station WBLS. “They were recruiting people in the Charlotte area. They called it ‘The Charlotte Singles Project.’ So, they reached out to me, and I didn’t really know what to expect.”
So, Clay decided to go through with the interview process—like, a lot of interviews.
“Next thing you know, after, like, interview seven,” he added, “they told me I’m officially a cast member of season six.”
Brittany Mills, Season 6
So, what exactly do those interviews entail?
"You have quite a few," Brittany revealed on the De-Influenced With Dani Austin podcast. "You’ve got on-the-phone interviews, you’ve got FaceTime calls or Zoom. And they just honestly ask you like, ‘OK, why are you wanting to date?’ Or like, ‘Why are you still single? How do you feel about dating? How do you feel about dating in Charlotte?’"
The senior client partner said she'd just moved to Charlotte at the time and heard rumors the dating scene was "awful." So when a Love Is Blind recruiter DM'ed her on Instagram, Brittany added, she did a follow-up call to learn about the show she'd never seen.
A few interviews later and "lo and behold," Brittany, who got engaged to castmate Kenneth Gorham before they split outside the pods, said, "here I go."
Johnny McIntyre, Season 6
Instagram isn't the only social media channel the casting team uses, either.
"I was initially approached for Love Is Blind on LinkedIn, so I kinda thought it was a joke," Johnny shared on The Weekly Scoop With CJ Sykes. "I knew about the show, and I knew the whole concept of it. But I didn’t know they approached you on LinkedIn. So I kind of messaged them back and I was like, ‘Hey, let’s do it. I’m free for a call right now. Can you call me?’ Sent my number in. And then like 10 seconds later I got a call, and that was my first ‘interview’ for the process."
While Johnny said he received another call the following day and that the process continued to progress, he noted he then didn't hear anything back for about a month or two.
"That’s when they were telling me, ‘Hey, you’re officially going to be an alternate,'" the account executive recalled. "'So we have 16 guys. You’re No. 16. If someone drops out, then you have a spot.’"
As viewers now know, he ended up securing that spot and marrying Amy Cortés on the show.
Chelsea Blackwell, Season 6
However, the casting process doesn’t always start on social media.
“A lot of the people got scouted—through LinkedIn, through Instagram, through TikTok, everything. Every person was different,” Chelsea, who got engaged to Jimmy Presnell on the show before their pre-wedding split, said on Sarah Alysse Bobo’s Stress Free SOULutions Podcast. “I and Laura [Dadisman] were, I think, one of the only girls who actually applied.”
After hearing that Love Is Blind was casting in Charlotte and getting encouragement from friends and family, she added, the flight attendant decided to give the process a go.
“I’m like, ‘You know what? I’ll apply. Why not?’” Chelsea noted. “And then the next day, I got a call back.”
Jessica Vestal, Season 6
Jessica also applied for the Netflix series. Although, she initially had some reservations.
"They had been casting in Charlotte for a couple months, and I’d heard about [it]. Everyone heard about [it]," the mom to daughter Autumn recalled on The Viall Files. "I had been getting messages on Instagram and stuff about it. I thought, ‘You know what? I’ve never seen anyone on the show that had a child.’ So I just kind of looked right over it. I was like, ‘They probably wouldn’t cast someone who had a child anyway.’"
But after a night of "poking around online," Jessica continued, she found the application link and decided to check it out.
"I saw on there they had questions like, ‘Do you have a child? Would you be interested in dating people who have children?’" the executive assistant, who also formed a connection with Jimmy in the pods, added. "I was like, 'Maybe they do.’ So I just filled it out on a whim thinking I would never hear anything back from it. And the next morning, they called me."
Izzy Zapata, Season 5
Going back to season five, you could say Izzy was just called to be on Love Is Blind—literally.
"I was working out one day on my lunch break, and I just got this phone call from an L.A. number," he recalled on The Viall Files. "I thought it was a telemarketer. So I ignored it twice, and then I got a long text saying, ‘Hey, this is so and so. I’m casting for Love Is Blind. You've ever seen it? We'd love to talk to you. I was like, 'There's no way this is real.'"
But sure enough, it was.
"I called her, and she's like, 'Add me on IG right now so you know I'm real.' And so I added her, and I was like, 'Holy s--t! Yeah, you are real,'" Izzy, who got engaged to Stacy Snyder before they parted ways at the altar, continued. "She's like, 'I love your profile. I would love to get a Zoom interview with you.'"
Uche Okoroha, Season 5
Some Love Is Blind cast members were contacted after having previously been considered for other shows. Take Uche, for example.
"The first show that this production studio reached out to me for was Married at First Sight," the attorney said on Rachel Uchitel's Miss Understood podcast, "and that was like a year or two years before Love Is Blind."
While Uche suggested Married at First Sight wasn't the right fit for him, he was open to going on Love Is Blind.
"It was more of like prompting over time, where people were reaching out to me for different shows," Uche—who dated Aaliyah Cosby in the pods before she learned of his pre-show relationship with castmate Lydia Gonzalez and left the experiment—added. "And I thought, 'OK. What the hell? I'm still single. I should just go for it.'"
Kwame Appiah, Season 4
Another Love Is Blind star who was first scouted for Married at First Sight? Kwame.
"The way that I ended up on Love Is Blind was because when I first got back to the States in I think 2018 [or] 2019, someone tried to recruit me for Married at First Sight," the athlete, who played soccer in Sweden, said on Reinvented With Jennifer Eckhart. "When they reached out to me, I remember the conversation was so funny: 'Hey, you don't know me, but I got your number from this person and I just wanted to ask you—would you think that you're ready to get married?' I was like, 'Woah!' I don't think so.' And then I just kinda moved on."
But after talking to his sister, Kwame continued, he decided to give Married at First Sight a try. However, he said he realized it wasn't a fit after a day or two of filming.
And while it wasn't at first sight, he did end up getting married to Chelsea Griffin on Love Is Blind.
Colleen Reed, Season 3
As for season three's Colleen, she had previously been considered for the Netflix show Sexy Beasts.
"I did, like, one interview with them, maybe, and I was like, 'This is so stupid," the ballerina recalled on the Out of the Pods podcast with Love Is Blind's Deepti Vempati and Natalie Lee. "And then I just never heard from them, and then COVID hit or something along those lines."
She also had her doubts when a member of the Love Is Blind casting team reached out on Instagram, with her originally thinking the inquiry was fake.
"I was just like, 'Whatever,'" Colleen, who wed Matt Bolton on the show, continued. "And I just kept going through the steps. And then, voilà, there I was in the pods."
Nancy Rodriguez, Season 3
But if you want to hear more about the application process, just ask Nancy—who said she applied on a girls’ trip to Cancún.
“My best friend DM’ed me the Instagram post, like the casting post,” she recalled on Out of the Pods. “And I looked at it and immediately recognized Love Is Blind because of season one.”
Though the real estate investor said it took her three attempts to submit her application due to “spotty” Wi-Fi, she appreciated the lengthy questionnaire.
“Personally, I really enjoyed the application process and the interview process because they ask you so many in-depth questions about you and who you are, and what you believe in, and what are you ready for?” Nancy added. “I remember one of the questions [was] like, ‘Name three things that your friends would say about you, but name three things that your partners would say about you from the past.’”
“It just really made me think ‘who am I?’” she continued. “And if I don’t get on this show, I kinda feel like I went through a really cool, unique experience of just going through the interview process.”
Of course, she did get on the show—accepting a proposal from Bartise Bowden before they broke up at the altar.
Natalie Lee, Season 2
In fact, Natalie—who also applied—shed some light on how these answers can be used during the selection process.
“It’s not random people that are chosen for this show,” the consulting manager, who got engaged to Shayne Jansen before their wedding day split, explained on her podcast with Deepti. “There is a compatibility factor, and we go through multiple tests to make sure there are potential matches for everyone.”
Cameron Hamilton, Season 1
As for how the very first season of Love Is Blind was cast, well, it doesn’t sound like the process was all that different. In fact, Cameron says the casting team reached out to both him and his eventual wife Lauren Speed-Hamilton.
“For me, it came in the form of a text message,” the data scientist shared on the couple’s Youtube channel. “I ignored the text message at first. I thought it was kind of shady. Two weeks later, I get a voicemail from casting. I call them back. They tell me about the premise of the show.”
After hearing the rundown, Cameron continued, he initially thought, “Who could be crazy enough to propose to someone after talking to them for two weeks through a wall? Obviously, that was me.”
But the more he learned about the series, the more interested he became.
“At first it’s like, ‘Ah, I’ll just fill out the casting application and then jump through the hoops,’” he remembered. “And then the more I did it, the more I was getting invested in the show—to the point where I felt like fate was really pulling me for the show. I felt like something was really telling me I needed to do this show.”
Jessica Batten, Season 1
Meanwhile, Jessica learned about a Love Is Blind casting call from one of her friends.
“She used to be a news anchor in Atlanta,” she explained of her pal to Us Weekly. “So she was kinda in that scene, and she had an agent send her the casting call. Of course, she was in a relationship at the time. She sent it my way because I happened to be the only single person in our entire group of friends.”
Wanting to try something new, Jessica continued, she decided to check it out.
“I ended up talking to the casting producer, and he sold me on this idea of stepping away from social media dating, swiping left on people’s faces. It’s such a desensitizing thing. This is a chance to really get to know somebody and for them to get to know you for who you are on the inside. It was a great time in my life to hear that pitch, and I was totally sold.”
Jessica ended up going on the show and getting engaged to Mark Cuevas. However, they split on their wedding day.
Damian Powers, Season 1
Another way Love Is Blind recruiters can find singles looking for their match? By scoping out the dating apps.
"I'm probably one of the most interesting cases because they actually found me on Tinder," Damian—who proposed to Giannina Gibelli in the pods before saying no at the altar—explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. "I started chatting with this girl, hit it off. She's like, 'Add me on Instagram.' Had a pretty good connection, and then she's like, 'I'm a casting producer.' And I'm like, 'Catfish, ha ha.'"
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