Love Is Blind is a reality television series on Netflix created by Chris Coelen[1] and produced by Kinetic Content[2] that premiered on February 13, 2020.

For 10 days, the men and women date each other in purpose-built "pods", small rooms where they can talk to each other by speaker but not see each other, except through a blue translucent barrier that allows no visual detail.

The casting team receives applications but also seeks people out on social media and at bars, grocery stores and church groups.

A third-party company conducts background checks and psychological evaluations, and the casting team tries to create a pool of participants where each person has some compatibility, on paper, with others.

[25] After the retreat, the couples headed back to Atlanta to the Spectrum on Spring apartment building, where they spent the rest of the time filming up until the weddings.

For the show's second series, the pods were shipped from Georgia to be filmed in a newly built studio in Santa Clarita, California.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Addictive, but problematic, Love Is Blind is undoubtedly an intoxicating binge, but its version of romance often comes off more toxic than aspirational.

[58] Daniel D'Addario of Variety writes that "Love is Blind, the smash dating series" is, along with The Ultimatum, "the new standard-bearers for romantic reality TV."

D'Addario says that creator Chris Coelen's shows "escalate from relatively simple set-ups to wild heights of human behavior, all because contestants are (or appear to be) left to their own devices."

[60] Yohana Delta of Vanity Fair calls Love is Blind "an emotional thrill ride from start to finish.

"[61] Writing in Skeptical Inquirer, Craig Foster and Minjung Park raised concerns about the way in which the program poses hypotheses and then conducts experiments with small sample sizes of participants who are not assigned to either an experimental or a control group.

This does not allow a genuine examination of the independent variable and poses a problem if social scientists want to test the suppositions because they would be constrained by ethical considerations if they attempted to recreate anything like the show.

The article concluded that while the show can be enjoyed as reality television that dramatises relationships, it is "important to recognize that real science involves a careful and ethical process conducted by experts who scrutinize each other's work.

"[65] Julia Jacobs of The New York Times writes that "Kim Kardashian, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Daniel Radcliffe are among the show's celebrity fans, and contestants have built gigantic social media followings, with one married participant from season 1, Lauren Speed-Hamilton, reaching 2.5 million followers on Instagram.

[68][69][70] In July 2022, season 2 contestant Jeremy Hartwell filed a lawsuit over what he claims were "inhumane working conditions", alleging he was encouraged to drink alcohol and denied food and water.

[71][72][73] In an August 2023 documentary, Thompson also alleges the season 2 cast were regularly denied food and water, causing him to lose "15 pounds in 3 weeks.

"[73] The documentary also included allegations that the LIB production team lied to the IRS, and claims that 50 to 60 cast members have anonymously corroborated the experience of abuse on the show.

[73] Season 2 participant Danielle Ruhl has said that producers pushed her to continue filming after she informed them that she was having thoughts of suicide and asked to leave.

The woman alleges that she was attacked by her then on-screen fiancé Thomas Smith on May 3, 2022 as the show's fifth season was being shot in Mexico and that the producers neglected the issue despite having knowledge.

Poche, who earned a total of $8000 from her participation in the show, filed a lawsuit to nullify the contract and claim intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to violations of California's labor code.