On Nov. 17, BuzzFeed dropped an exclusive interview with several cast members of Love is Blind Season 3. Let’s just say that SK, Raven, Nancy, and Zanab dished out the tea about Season 3, with some revelations a little more interesting than others. In particular, Raven responded to LIB Season 1’s Lauren Speed’s tweets where she claimed that Black women were repeatedly edited out of the show. Raven revealed that instead of placing blame on production, that liability should fall upon the men that are cast for the show who don’t plan on dating outside of their own race.
To understand both Lauren and Raven’s comments clearer, let’s take it from the top. Lauren took to Twitter to air out her frustrations with LIB on Oct. 24, explaining that she feels like “[Black women] are always in the trailer but not the show.” She continued her statement in another Tweet, stating that many couples on the show were forced for entertainment, and that “y’all could at least force some more sisters to move forward throughout the show,” presumably referring to production. Her Campus reached out to Lauren’s team for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
In her interview with BuzzFeed, Raven pointed out she saw evidence that some men in the Season 3 cast may not have been willing to date women outside of their race. Raven stated that she felt like their season was “one of the most diverse casts [she’s] ever seen,” and that she was “confused why they’re talking about race as if we don’t have diversity on the show.” This isn’t the first time that LIB has been criticized for their lack of diversity. In the past, viewers have noted that there’ve been few plus-size contestants on the show, and if they were apart of the cast, they were not given equal screen time.
She went on, “I love that that’s a discussion topic, but […] I would like to offer that this demographic of women weren’t able to make successful connections not because of the color of their skin or production, but maybe because of the men that were on the other side of the wall. I’m not throwing anyone under the bus, but we have to build connections through a wall. And if you can’t do that, because people on the other side aren’t looking for what you have to offer, then you aren’t a part of the story. I hate that.
“It’s not that anyone’s being edited out, there were no other couples that came off of the show — besides the ones that you guys saw. […] There were so many other Black women, and it was so fun to have this experience with them. But unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of men cast on the other side that weren’t looking for that. There’s receipts of some of these guys specifically saying that that isn’t something that they’re looking for. So, to me, that’s what we should be talking about.”
If Raven’s accusations about the men on the show are true, they offer a different perspective than Lauren’s comments, but either way, it’s clear something needs to change behind the scenes at LIB. Hopefully, Raven’s claims will encourage LIB to take a step back and potentially enforce new casting procedures to ensure that this problem doesn’t arise again in future seasons.