‘Love is Blind’ cast reveal season 8 was gayer than you know (and more) at MPR event
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Dearest gentle readers, some of you are tired of the “Love is Blind” coverage — we’re almost done now that the Minneapolis season is over.
But for those of you who can’t get enough, we got more of the insider scoop by hosting a live event at the MPR News headquarters on Tuesday evening called “Love is Unaired.”
MPR News hosted three people from season eight of “Love is Blind” who did not get much screen time. Vanessa Boreland, Hugo Orieny and Casandra Barron joined to share about their connections in the pods, lessons learned from dating “blind” and other perspectives not shown to viewers on Netflix.
Boreland is a media planner from Apple Valley living in south Minneapolis. Orieny is from Maple Grove living in downtown Minneapolis. Barron is a hairstylist who was born and raised in northeast Minneapolis.
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Below are some key takeaways.
There are several queer women on the show
Minneapolis was once deemed one of the “gayest cities in America.” Minnesota overall is among states with the highest proportion of queer people in the country. So it’s perhaps no surprise that there were more LGBTQ+ identifying people on “Love is Blind” than viewers know.
Viewers see participant Brittany Dodson break up with one romantic prospect because of his reaction to her past dating women — she later told Entertainment Weekly that she doesn’t feel strongly about labelling her sexuality.
However, there were enough openly bisexual or bicurious women in the lounge to prompt a warning, according to the MPR News panelists.
“The producer literally came in one day and he was like, ‘You guys, just remember, like, you’re here to find your partner. You’re not here to date each other,’” said Boreland.
“He was like, ‘You can’t marry each other’ and Molly was like, ‘Can’t we?’” said Barron.
On the official Netflix reunion for this season, when asked whether she has a girlfriend, participant Molly Mulaney said she wouldn’t say no to it.
It also turned out that Barron and cast member Madison Errichiello were already following each other on Instagram when they landed in California to start filming for the show because they had matched on Hinge the year prior. Errichiello shared the same story on the “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe” podcast this week.
“She’s like, if this doesn’t work out, hit me up after,” said Barron.
‘Love is Blind’ participants agree with viewers that the show is boring
The eighth season has gotten a lot of flack from viewers for being relatively drama-free and has picked up the moniker “Love is Bland.” The cast agree with that take.
Boreland said she fast forwarded through scenes until she saw her face. “Those first six episodes were hard to get through. Really hard, in my opinion,” she said.
Orieny had not seen a single episode of “Love is Blind” ever — including his own season — until his preparation for the MPR News event. He decided to skim.
“They really could have done a much better job editing this season with especially the stories that were actually happening in there. So their mistake,” said Orieny.
The panelists said audiences miss out on things like the camaraderie in the lounges, which included the men doing “zen swings” to ground themselves before dates and all the women taking tequila shots every time someone had a break-up.
The panelists agreed the season lacked diversity, too
“I think they really underestimated how important diversity is to the Twin Cities,” said Boreland. “I feel like maybe, if you’re not familiar with Minnesota, what we saw is kind of the picture people have in their mind of it. But that’s not the picture of Minneapolis and St. Paul and, you know, our city areas.”
“So I do think it was a miss and I think the opportunity was there because we did have diverse cast members and they had stories,” she added.
Boreland said she was disappointed to see producers did not include anything about Amanda Burke, a 43-year-old woman — and the only Asian person on the cast. She also thinks viewers miss out on seeing other men with different political beliefs than ones dividing the internet.
“They definitely, I think, could have done better,” said Barron.
Barron said Minneapolis people and their politics were not represented accurately by the people whose storylines got screen time on the show.
“I’m from Minneapolis where it’s more liberal and, you know, more LGBTQ rights heavy. And I just honestly was shocked watching it back. I was like, I had no idea that this was how it was going to be portrayed, or like, this is how these people felt.”
‘Love is Blind’ cast frequent North Loop bars – and love karaoke
Several times on the show, people referred to going out to the bars and bumping into their “Love is Blind” pod squad. This has led many non-Minnesotan viewers to wonder if there are only a handful of bars in Minneapolis. That is not the case. While the city of Minneapolis has yet to share exactly how many bars are within city limits, MPR News is aware there are many more.
Boreland and Barron said they tend to frequent bars in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis.
However, they’ve recently made northeast Minneapolis their new stomping grounds for karaoke. Boreland said her go-to song is “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker, while Barron enjoys singing System of a Down.
Participants spent a ton of money on clothing
Barron said she had to do a lot of shopping to prepare for the show. Production had advised her to pack a wardrobe with “pops of color,” but as a hairstylist, she’s always dressed in black.
“I spent kind of a band on some clothes going into it,” said Barron. “Because I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to be on TV. I want to look good.’”
Boreland said clothing, hair styling and skincare is all on the individual. She also spent a lot of money on clothing and noted viewers don’t get to see any of those outfits, but she appreciated the opportunity to dress more bright or funky than she might usually. “I’m in this created environment where I can kind of show out a little bit, so it was fun,” she said.
Orieny said it was less fun for him. He was on a weight loss journey so had put off buying new clothes until he was confirmed for the show. He got the notice he was cast just five days before the flight was scheduled to leave.
“I was just throwing clothes. I was like, ‘You know what? This should work.’ But yeah, it was a stressful five days,” he said.
Participants had no complaints about working conditions on the show
“I know that’s the big question from all the seasons,” said Boreland with a laugh. “They did feed us. We had access to anything, anything we wanted.”
She said meals might be at odd times given they were filming all day, but she assured the MPR News audience that participants got all the snacks and energy drinks they wanted.
“On the men’s side of things, it was a lot of food requests,” said Orieny. “Just keep bringing them in, right?”
“I think they improved. I can’t speak on past seasons, but they definitely kept us fed,” said Barron.
Boreland and Orieny mentioned working from 6 or 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. so MPR News asked if they felt compensated fairly for that. Participants paused and said pay wasn’t the goal for them.
“I think we all knew what we were getting into,” said Orieny. “Going in, you’re really there to find love and then the money is just, you know, a cherry on top. So, yeah, I would say everything just kind of worked out.”
Hugo, Vanessa and Casandra all highly recommend dating on ‘Love is Blind’
All the panelists rated the “Love is Blind” experience very highly, giving it between eight to 10 stars out of 10. They made good friends and memories along the way, and it’s made an impact on their dating lives.
Barron dropped out after one day in the pods. She realized she wasn’t committed to the process and returned home. However, taking the break helped her situation with an on-again, off-again romantic partner; he’s now her boyfriend.
“We both needed this so bad, to get that push to actually like want to be with one another. Because then, when I came home, I was like, ‘I screwed up,’ and he also felt the same … I don’t even think we’d still be together if it wasn’t for the show, because it pushed us to, like, make that commitment and know that, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go get married in six weeks’ or whatever it is,” she said.
Orieny said one aspect he appreciated is that everyone is dating with intention. Everyone on the show is seeking marriage (in theory) and focused solely on getting to know people.
“Now, real dating, right? There’s not equal amounts of effort right on both sides. There’s always one kind of giving more than the other, sometimes just because, you know, work, life and all that. So in the pods, I got to really, genuinely see what it looks like to see both sides giving 100 percent effort. And that is why you see a lot of people just progress much more than they would in the real world,” he said.
Boreland said being on “Love is Blind” helped her re-frame what can be considered a first date question.
“It made me feel a bit more comfortable having those difficult or more serious conversations early on in dating, because when you get into the pods that was, like, the first question, ‘OK, do you want to have kids? What are your political views? What are your religious beliefs? You have to get that out right away,” she said.
