Back to the pods! Nick and Vanessa Lachey will remain the hosts of Love Is Blind despite the backlash from viewers following this month’s live Season 4 reunion that culminated in a petition for their removal. Entertainment Tonight also reports that there is no truth to the rumors that the Lacheys will be replaced by Season 1’s success story, married couple Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton.
The Season 4 reunion of the popular Netflix series was surrounded by controversy from the start, from technological issues to Vanessa’s extensive line of questioning surrounding when the couples planned to have children. Following the special’s premiere, fans of the show launched a Change.org petition to have the Lacheys replaced as host, which as of the time of publication had received more than 42,000 signatures.
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Vanessa was criticized for hyper-focusing on when the contestants planned to have babies, individually questioning each couple about when they planned to become parents. Contestant Paul Peden also called out Vanessa for what he perceived as a “personal bias” against him during an interview with ET as she continued to “drill into” his comment about not seeing ex Micah Lussier as the mother of his children. Vanessa has not addressed the critiques publicly, but Peden did share on his Instagram Story that the co-host had apologized to him.
The Lacheys also have their defenders. Love Is Blind alum Natalie Lee and Deepti Vempati defended Nick and Vanessa’s reunion performance during Monday’s episode of their Out of the Pods podcast. “Look, I know we’re biased because of course we know Vanessa and Nick,” Lee said. “We really considered them as Mom and Dad during filming. …They played this role of mentors to us, providing advice as we were making our decision to say ‘I do’ or ‘I don’t’ on our wedding day.”
Lee said that while she agreed with fans’ criticism, she also thought the conversation surrounding Vanessa “feels like a dog pile.” Vempati agreed with her co-host that the backlash facing the Lacheys has been “pushed too far.” Lee noted, “People are being almost overly critical and [Vanessa is] taking so much heat that I’m like, I don’t know that it’s deserved. It’s tough to watch because Nick and Vanessa are just really, really nice, great people.”
