Love Is Blind star Chelsea Blackwell is facing her critics head on after backlash for comparing herself to Megan Fox on the season 6 premiere of the hit Netflix show.
The flight attendant and event planner, 31, took to Instagram on Sunday, February 18, to share a video of herself dancing to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” captioning the post with: “Go on a show for love > get your butt dragged through the trenches.”
Reposting a message shared by friend Presley Carter on her Instagram Story, Presley attempted to put the critics at bay by sharing a note: “Thank you all who are from our hometown and known Chels for all of your love and support for her through this! It’s been so exciting to watch her and see everything!”
She continued: “Also very hard because people are so mean here on the internet and take reality TV way too seriously. Like it’s a show yall, we need to cool it 😉”
“These are real people with feelings, and emotions,” Presley added. “With families and friends reading the comments. We’re ALL imperfect, all trying our best. Please respect the cast through this.”
In the first episode, Chelsea tells Love Is Blind star Jimmy Presnell — who can’t see her face — that she’s frequently told that she looks like Fox.
“It’s just because I have dark hair and blue eyes,” she says. “But I don’t see it, so don’t get excited.”
The comparison bodes well for Jimmy, 28, who asks, “Can we get married?”
The episode seemed to put fans into a tailspin, who bashed Chelsea on X for alleged misrepresentation.
“Just recalled Chelsea said she looked like Megan Fox and I bet that was Jimmy’s deciding factor,” one user wrote. “I mean Chelsea isn’t bad looking but Megan Fox #LoveIsBlind.”
“Every time they come on the screen I cackle bc she really told that man that,” another added. “She didnt have to say that.”
On Wednesday, Love Is Blind’s Trevor Sova didn’t hold back either when he spoke to Us Weekly about Chelsea rejecting him for Jimmy.
“I honestly forgot that Chelsea was talking to other guys in the pods,” Trevor, 31, exclusively told Us ahead of the season 6 premiere. “I don’t know, you’re so honed in on the person that you want to marry that you forget it’s almost, like, a competition.”
He continued: “And so, I was fairly confident going in and, yeah, I was definitely shocked when I went in and the first words out of Chelsea’s mouth I could tell that, ‘Oh, Jimmy already proposed to her, this is how it’s going to go.’ I was not ready for that at all.”
Chelsea sparked pod bonds with both men during the reality TV dating experiment. Jimmy was equally torn between Chelsea and single mother Jessica Vestal. He ultimately called it off with Jessica, 28, partially over fears about becoming an instant stepfather to her 10-year-old daughter, Autumn. Jimmy opted to propose to Chelsea, who accepted and went to the pods with Trevor to end their relationship.
Trevor later theorized to Us that one potential factor could have changed the course of the love square.
“I talked about this earlier that whoever you had the last date with in the day was fresh in your mind,” he told Us. “And the day before, I had an early morning date with Chelsea and then Jimmy was her last date at night and then Jimmy was her morning proposal. So, I do think that kind of played a role in it, but we’ll see.”
Jimmy and Chelsea’s relationship began to falter on reveal day once he considered leaving the experiment early before proposing, which led her believing he had regrets about getting engaged. Jimmy also admitted in a confessional that Chelsea lied to him about looking like the Transformers actress, although asserting that he is still “very” attracted to her regardless. They later got into a fight during the cast’s group trip when he called Amber Desiree “AD” Smith “stacked.”
The first six episodes of Love Is Blind season 6 are currently streaming on Netflix. New episodes drop weekly.
