After 2025, it can be concretely proven that love is — in fact — not blind.
This year, Netflix gave Us two stateside seasons of Love Is Blind as well as iterations in the U.K., France and Italy. In total, only two couples from those experiments are still together today. Instead, we watched what can only be described as pure chaos as physical attraction and outside factors led to the downfall of many seemingly perfect pod matches.
Love Is Blind season 9, specifically, made history as the first journey to end without a single marriage.
“The experiment is one of the most incredible things I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of,” creator Chris Coelen told Tudum in October. “Remember that the experiment is an experiment, and it’s meant to test two main questions: First, is it possible to fall in love with someone based solely on who they are? And second, if you do fall in love and get engaged, is that love strong enough to overcome the obstacles of the real, material world?”
He continued, “In season 9, at least one member of each couple felt their love was not strong enough to overcome the challenges of the real world, and they chose not to get married. That’s exactly how the experiment is supposed to work, so I would say not only is the experiment working, I think it’s working better than ever.”
Keep scrolling to revisit the most chaotic moments from Love Is Blind this year:
Season 8
The year kicked off with Minneapolis’ season of the dating experiment. At first glance, Daniel Hastings and Taylor Haag seemed to be the perfect couple until an Instagram follow threatened to ruin everything. Hours after getting engaged, Taylor was worried that Daniel knew what she looked like in advance because he followed her on social media. He denied the claims, which she believed and they decided to work through the issues.
Taylor and Daniel are still in wedded bliss today, which can’t be said for the rest of the contestants. Ben Mezzenga and Sara Carton, Virginia Miller and Devin Buckley, Lauren O’Brien and Dave Bettenberg, and Monica Danus and Joey Leveille all broke up at the altar. Adding to the franchise chaos, Joey and Sara started dating after the weddings, setting off a chain of back-and-forth drama over potential overlap. (Joey and Sara have both denied accusations.)
Season 9
Long before the season 9 engaged couples of Denver opted against tying the knot, the pods proved to be overwhelming. Anna Yuan and Blake Anderson both left the experiment early, ghosting their pod dates. After Patrick Suzuki got over the sting of being bailed on by Anna, he refocused on his connection with Kacie McIntosh. They got engaged sight unseen, which only lasted for a few hours.
While Kacie dumped Patrick over a lack of physical connection, she allegedly refused to return the show-provided engagement ring. They continued to battle over who was in the right all the way up until the season reunion. Kacie won a random pickup basketball game during the tell-all, meaning that she could keep the sparkler.
Aside from Kacie and Patrick’s very brief love story, Madison Maidenberg and Joe Ferrucci’s engagement was equally short and not-so-sweet. Who will ever be able to forget Joe physically running out of his tux fitting with Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” playing in the background? Joe, much like Kacie, claimed that he realized Madison just wasn’t The One, which blindsided his bride-to-be. The drama continued post-show, when it was revealed that Kacie told Madison that they were “Eskimo sisters” since she had hooked up with Joe after their respective breakups.
The other most surprising story line belonged to “Sparkle Megan” Walerius, who went viral pre-finale when she was spotted with a new man and a baby in Denver. During the reunion, she confirmed that she welcomed a baby, son Brooks, with boyfriend Paul Wegman after three months together.
‘Love Is Blind: U.K.’ Season 2
The second try of the British spinoff brought a trio of weddings, but both Kal Pasha and Billy Jervis blindsided their respective wives within three months with their nearly identical breakup conversations.
Not all hope is lost across the pond, though, as Kieran Holmes-Darby and Megan Jupp’s marriage is still going strong to this day.
‘Love Is Blind: France’
The first year of the French experiment was off to the races when, for the first time, a contestant was removed from the pods over breaking the rules. Gallien Braghini was escorted out after he met up with a woman at his production-provided hotel.
“In order for this experiment to work, there are a lot of rules. We have to be in a bubble. I broke one of the rules of the experiment,” Gallien said in French during a confessional interview, which aired in September. “I wasn’t necessarily hoping that this adventure would have a fairy tale ending, but now I’m leaving through the side door, which is pretty pathetic.”
Even without Gallien’s presence, the season finished with six engagements but only two made it down the aisle. The reunion later revealed that none of the married couples could make it work in the real world.
‘Love Is Blind: Italy’
The Italian iteration hit the streamer in December, where Giovanni Calvario quickly raised eyebrows among the women. After giving meaningful gifts to both Gergana Lazarova and Giorgia Paselli, he couldn’t make up his mind about which woman was the right pick. In the end, he said goodbye to Gergana, and she bit back in Italian that women are diamonds or zirconias, and as a diamond, she deserved more. What an iconic mic-drop moment.
Giovanni, like many of his fellow male participants on the Italian season, wanted to keep his options open as long as possible. The women, all gorgeous and accomplished in their own right, were, meanwhile, going all-in with the one man they actually wanted to seriously date. It only adds to the chaos when the person they want isn’t as deeply invested in a potential marriage together.
Shocking Splits Aplenty
In addition to the lack of connections on the new season, there were some unexpected breakups across the LiB universe. Season 3 couple Colleen Reed and Matt Bolton announced their plans to divorce in May just six months before costars Alexa and Brennon Lemieux separated. Lydia Velez Gonzalez from season 5 also broke up with her pod spouse, Milton Johnson, in June.
“It was a layer of situations and things that just kept piling up,” Lydia said on the “What’s the Reality?” podcast. “When I asked him or told him, ‘Hey, I’ll let you know when the divorce papers are ready,’ his response was, ‘I’m not going to sign the papers unless there’s an NDA.’ That said enough for me to know that I needed to share my truth and my experience because I’ve been suffering in silence.”
We can only hope that 2026 brings even more drama (and romance!) to the Love Is Blind universe.
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