Pod family forever! Members of the Love Is Blind family defended cohosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey after a petition was created to remove the couple from the reality series.
“Look, I know we’re biased because of course we know Vanessa and Nick. We really considered them as Mom and Dad during filming,” season 2 alum Natalie Lee said during the Monday, April 24, episode of her and Deepti Vempati’s “Out of the Pods” podcast. “They played this role of mentors to us, providing advice as we were making our decision to say ‘I do’ or ‘I don’t’ on our wedding day. I also agree with the criticism, but I also think it’s unfair as well with how much backlash she’s getting. It feels like a dog pile.”
Nick, 49, and Vanessa, 42 — who have hosted the Netflix dating show since its premiere in February 2020 — first came under fire during the season 4 reunion after some fans felt the duo were showing personal bias toward contestants and asking them invasive questions. The controversial episode — which experienced technical difficulties, preventing many from being able to watch live on its original airdate of April 16 — sparked an uptick in a change.org petition rallying for the hosts to be replaced. The document currently has over 400,000 signatures.
While both Natalie, 31, and Deepti, 32, agreed there were “certain moments” during the April 16 reunion they “disagreed with,” the duo ultimately felt backlash has been “pushed too far.”
“People are being almost overly critical and she’s taking so much heat that I’m like, I don’t know that it’s deserved,” Natalie explained. “It’s tough to watch because Nick and Vanessa are just really, really nice, great people.”
Deepti, meanwhile, noted that the pair — who tied the knot in July 2011 and share children Camden, 10, Brooklyn, 8, and Phoenix, 6 — “really do care” about the Love Is Blind cast.
Despite their support for the Lacheys, the women admitted that there were various “missed opportunities to ask the right questions” — particularly by Vanessa — and topics were “cut off” in ways that left viewers wanting more.
“I don’t know if that was a miss from Vanessa’s part or if she was just trying to keep things along because they were going over time,” Natalie shared, adding that it was “inappropriate” of the former MTV VJ to ask the contestants about their plans to have children.
“Especially in this day and age when there are couples who don’t want to have kids or can’t have kids,” the consulting manager continued. “I couldn’t tell if it was a subject that was being pushed by Vanessa or just the show itself. Hopefully, it’s a learning lesson for the Love Is Blind franchise, don’t ask over and over again if someone’s having kids.”
Not everyone was as quick to back the Lacheys following the controversial reunion. Season 4 cast member Paul Peden, who got engaged to Micah Lussier in the pods, went off on the Disaster Movie star during an interview with Entertainment Tonight following the episode. The 29-year-old reality star felt Vanessa took Micah’s side when pressing the exes about why they didn’t say “I do” at the altar.
“I was like, ‘F—k man.’ They kept drilling, drilling it down on me,” Paul told the outlet during an April 17 interview. “I think I said my piece. I think Vanessa might have had a little bit of personal bias in that scenario or at least I kind of detected that. I don’t know. But that’s just my assumption based on how she continued to drill into it after I gave my full rationale for why I felt the way that I did.”
Netflix viewers who tuned into the reunion saw Micah, 27, get emotional when Vanessa asked a question about Paul saying he didn’t see his then-fiancée as “motherly.”
“I think it was extremely reductive in the way that they dismissed all nuance and complexity in why I said no,” he told ET. “It was framed as, the reason that I said no was that she wasn’t able to fill a mothering role and a nurturing atmosphere and whatever. That was one piece of the puzzle. It was incredibly complex, but that was the answer. That was the reason why. And that’s just a fraction of the story.”
Viewers seemingly agreed with Paul’s complaints and subsequently flooded Vanessa’s latest Instagram post with criticisms about the exchange. While the Philippines native has since disabled commenting on her social media posts about the show, Paul revealed that she sent him flowers to apologize for their altercation the next day.
“Thanks for acknowledging the accidental misleading @vanessalachey,” he wrote via Instagram Stories alongside a snap of the bouquet.
Love Is Blind season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
