'Love Is Blind' Creator Dishes On Vetting Process & Plans For Future Seasons

Netflix’s “Love is Blind” has seen two seasons and four successful marriages. Each season, single people spend 10 days forming relationships in “pods” where they can speak to each other, but not see each other, until it is time to propose.

Creator Chris Coelen sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about some highlights from season 2 and plans for future seasons.

“This is what we always say: It’s an experiment first, and it’s a TV show documenting that experiment second,” Coelen explained, “From the point of view of it as an experiment, I think it’s a terrific success. Everyone involved in it, or 99 percent of the people involved with it, feel like it’s made a huge difference in their life.”

“It’s been a transformational occurrence because of the experience that they went through, because of the way that they learned about themselves and about other people in their lives,” he continued. “And obviously, for some people, they got married — they changed their lives in a really dramatic, radical way; in a way that they were hoping they were going to do when they first went into it.”

“So from that perspective, I’m incredibly thankful that the participants really embrace the experience and really dive in and immerse themselves in it,” he added.

Abhishake Chatterjee, better known as Shake, has been cast as the “villain” of the show’s second season due to demoralizing comments he made about his fiancée Deepti Vempati. Deepti turned him down at the altar and the two have since gone their separate ways.

Many fans have criticized the producers for letting Shake onto the show at all, saying that it should have been obvious that he was only there for clout and not to find an actual relationship.

“Listen, we vet people coming into the show. It’s not an infallible process,” he admitted. “I’m not unhappy that Shake made it onto the show. The intention is that you invite into the pods people who go through a pretty rigorous process to be chosen, and they have a stated intention of being serious about finding someone.”

“I’m certainly unhappy that Deepti didn’t get the happy ending that she wanted there, but I think even talking to Deepti after the fact, she has felt she has grown tremendously through this experience as a person, and I’m really happy about that,” he continued. “I’m happy for her.”

“I’m hoping that Shake will feel the same way at some point, if he doesn’t already,” he added.

One of the biggest criticisms of “Love is Blind” is that there is only a possibility for heterosexual matchings. Although Coelen claimed to be a “big advocate for diversity and inclusion” he seemed to sidestep the question as to whether or not there would be the possibility for same-sex couples to appear on the show.

“I’m a big advocate for diversity and inclusivity across all sectors and categories, and am welcoming to all kinds of human beings,” he said.

“I never want to trick people, so from that standpoint, if we’re making a show that is about people’s relationships, it’s important for them to have us as their guardrails — to have a pool of people that, at least based on their stated intentions, they’re interested in,” he continued.

“That doesn’t just mean in terms of your sexual identity,” he added. “It means, in terms of your desire to be married, and to be married to a person like them. There are all kinds of fascinating love stories to tell. Being inclusive across different backgrounds and different ethnicities is something that we’ve done from day one on all of our shows, and we’ve done that with a variety of queer love stories.”

“The most important thing to us in producing a show is to have it be authentic,” he added. “To me, it doesn’t really matter what happens in season one or season two or season three, or beyond. All it matters is that we allow them a true space to have a real experience.”

“What we got right in season one is what I hope we continue to get right in future seasons, which is, let it be real, and whatever happens, happens,” he added.