After Criticism Of 'Love Is Blind's' Casting Arguably Reached An All-Time High, Season 8 Contestant Virginia Said The Black Men Admitted They 'Usually Date White Women'
If you keep up with Love Is Blind, you might be aware that the show has long come under fire for its questionable casting — particularly when it comes to diversity and representation. And one major issue that has been highlighted by viewers and cast members alike is the racial makeup of the show.
Back in 2022, Season 1 contestant Lauren Speed-Hamilton accused the Netflix dating show of cutting Black women out of the final edit despite featuring them in the trailers. She tweeted, "I don't like how LIB be cutting all the black women. How come they are always in the trailer but not the show…"
I don't like how LIB be cutting all the black women. How come they are always in the trailer but not the show… 👀
— Lauren Speed (@Need4LSpeed) October 24, 2022
Twitter: @Need4LSpeed
Host Nick Lachey addressed Lauren's comment at the time, saying, 'It's a fair observation, but the counterargument to that is that it's not manipulated in the sense that the people gravitate to who they gravitate to.' Regardless, the show has continually been criticized for its lack of diversity across most of the seasons since — and this discourse arguably reached an all-time high when Season 8 aired most recently. After the pods, the season featured just one non-white couple.
Netflix
LIB creator Chris Coelen addressed all the criticism last month, claiming that the lack of diversity was 'not intentional.' He said, 'The show casts itself. We put people in the pods, and you try to have a very diverse group of people in lots of different ways [at the start]. And then the people who get engaged are the people who get engaged. The people who fall in love are the people who fall in love.'
With all this in mind, LIB contestant Virginia Miller — who was one half of Season 8's only non-white couple — has called out the show's lack of diverse casting.
Appearing on a recent episode of the What's the Reality podcast, which is hosted by Season 6 LIB star Amber 'AD' Smith, Virginia was asked how she felt about her season being 'so white.'
'It was really unfortunate,' she said, adding that the show did not provide a realistic representation of Minnesota, where Season 8 was based. 'We have the highest Somali demographic and the highest Hmong demographic…It's pretty diverse.'
Notably, Virginia went on to claim that the Black men of this season said they 'usually date white women.' She said, 'I think that there were four men who may have identified as Black men. So, two African men, and then two biracial men. There were more Black women — there were five Black women. But the Black men on the cast have said that they usually date white women.'
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