'Love Is Blind' Star Abhishek 'Shake' Chatterjee Missing From 'After the Alter' Special, So Where Was He?
The Love Is Blind Season 2 After the Altar reunion episodes included almost everyone from the Netflix show's latest season. However, Abhishek "Shake" Chatterjee was nowhere to be found in the three episodes, which were released on Sept. 16. Chatterjee was controversial among viewers and co-star Kyle Abrams told Today he was not welcome.
"A few of us said we wouldn't do the show if he was there. We left them with no choice," Abrams recalled. "He was probably going to dig his hole deeper if he'd done the show. It's better that he didn't do it."
Chatterjee was not invited to the "guy's night" event or the Michigan trip, Abrams said. Producers also asked Abrams if he wanted to have dinner with Chatterjee, but he declined. Abrams later dated Deepti Vempati, to whom Chatterjee got engaged during Season 2. At the end of the season, Vempati refused to follow through with the marriage.
Netflix did not respond to Abrams' claims, but Chatterjee told Today he was approached to participate in After The Altar. "After seeing After the Altar, I was so happy I didn't do it. So happy," he said. "Me being gone allowed them to focus on some of the negatives of the other people. Whereas with me there, they would have just piled into me as like the scapegoat."
Chatterjee was a controversial cast member thanks to his comments about Vempati. Her family and viewers both criticized him for his comments about Vempati's physical appearance. However, the veterinarian insisted he did not have any reason to apologize. "I've mentioned earlier that there's certainly things I wanna work on for myself and get better at," Chatterjee said in a March 1 Instagram video. "But one thing I don't feel inclined to do is to pretend I'm sad or sorry about certain things – certain things that were out of my control, certain things that I can't necessarily even speak about."
Chatterjee also turned fans against him when he mocked Love Is Blind co-host Nick Lachey after the finale was released. During the reunion special, he also shocked everyone by telling hosts Lachey and his wife, Vanessa Lachey, that he was attracted to the NCIS: Hawai'i star. In late March, he told Us Weekly he was taking a break from his veterinary work to focus on "new opportunities popping up in the crypto and NFT space." He is also moving to Miami and is dating Emily Wilson.
Love Is Blind Season 2 only ended with two marriages. Iyanna McNeely and Jarrette Jones, and Danielle Ruhl and Nick Thompson tied the knot. However, McNeely and Jones split on Aug. 17. Ruhl also filed for divorce from Thompson on Aug. 21. Abrams was engaged to Shaina Hurley, but she left the show during the trip to Cancun. After leaving the show, Hurley married Christos Lardakis. Once After the Altar was released, Abrams confirmed he is no longer dating Vempati and is seeing someone else.