'Love Is Blind' Creator 'Not Unhappy' That Shake Was Cast In Season 2

Netflix’s “Love is Blind” has had its fair share of drama over the past two seasons. Although four couples have been happily married after connecting on the show, many have had their intimate heartbreaks shared with the world.

Show creator Chris Coelen recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about some of the contestants from season 2, including the controversial Abhishek Chatterjee, known as Shake.

Many fans of the show have criticized the “Love is Blind” producers for casting Shake, accusing him of seeking clout and not actually wanting to find a genuine relationship. He was engaged to Deepti Vempati, who walked away from him at the altar after he made disrespectful comments about her to other contestants.

Although Coelen said that they do vet people coming onto the show, he admitted that “it’s not an infallible process.”

“I’m not unhappy that Shake made it onto the show,” he said. “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. Now, they all say that none of them really expect that it’s gonna happen because there’s a high degree of skepticism when people walk into those pods. No matter how you come into it, though, you do get transformed.”

“And I will tell you that I remember talking to Shake personally on the day of his reveal when he saw Deepti for the first time, and I remember talking with him just briefly, saying hello to him and wishing him good luck in the future,” he continued. “I was incredibly moved and blown away by what I perceived to be his emotional sort of maturation and transformation in the pods, that he had seemingly discovered things about himself in the pods that were very profound in terms of why he felt the way he did and about who he was as a person, and I think he felt that way.”

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

He also said that, while the show does “psychological testing” and background checks on its contestants, he lets the contestants make the decisions for themselves.

“If you look at Shake and Deepti, Deepti chose Shake — I didn’t choose Shake for her,” he explained. “She chose him, and in that way, it’s very reflective of the real world. And she felt great about that decision when she made it, and obviously, again, the real world ended up showing them that they shouldn’t be together. My responsibility is to let people make their own decisions. Really.”

“Of course, as a human being, I want everybody to have a happy ending,” he continued. “But a happy ending doesn’t necessarily correlate to getting married at the end of the day. I would say most people feel that Deepti’s happy ending was choosing herself. And so, for me, I root for people to have the ending that makes sense for them and to take something away from it.”

He also commented on Shake’s concerns that he was going to get a bad edit.

“Obviously, every show is edited. We have over 30,000 hours of footage,” he explained. “I encourage people to speak their mind. Shake wants to call out that he’s worried about the editing? Great. I’m not gonna take that out — that’s how he feels.”

“But you also see how everybody else feels, which is, ‘Actually, Shake, we think you got a really good edit. Actually, we think that you got off light — you’re actually more of an a--hole than you come off as.’ That’s how they felt,” he continued. “So I’m not gonna stop either side from voicing whatever their opinion is. My job, ultimately, is to try to convey a truthful experience of their journey.”

With all that footage, many are curious about what comments Shake allegedly made that were “way worse” than what was already presented on the show.

“Did he make comments that were worse? I would say, as much as we do film and as much footage as we do have, we’re not filming them 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he explained. “Just like with Shayne and Natalie — he got upset at the bachelor party when they were supposed to sleep in separate places. They weren’t supposed to come back together till their wedding day, and he was upset and decided he wanted to go over her place.”

“Nobody was there to film it,” he added. “We want them to live their real lives, and that’s one of the reasons that this works. I am not personally aware of every single thing that Shake has said or didn’t say. We try to tell the truth, as we see it, of their experience.”