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The “Love Is Blind” Producer Responded To Jessica’s Claims That Going Through With Her Wedding Was “Psychological Warfare”
By now, I’m sure you’ll have binged all of Love Is Blind — the reality show where people fall in love without ever having seen each other, before getting engaged and married within the space of a month. Netflix If you haven’t watched it yet, then you must do so immediately. And you also need…
By now, I’m sure you’ll have binged all of Love Is Blind — the reality show where people fall in love without ever having seen each other, before getting engaged and married within the space of a month.
Netflix
If you haven’t watched it yet, then you must do so immediately. And you also need to stop reading this post right now because there are big spoilers ahead.
And if you’re a fan of the show, I’m sure you’ll also have an opinion on one of the more controversial contestants, ~regional manager~ Jessica Batten.
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As well as causing uproar by giving her dog wine, Jessica also became one of three contestants to turn down marrying her fiancé while standing at the altar.
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While her fiancé Mark was all in and ready to tie the knot, Jessica decided at the last minute to bail on the wedding after spending the entire season questioning how compatible they were in light of their 10-year age gap.
However, in a recent interview, Jessica claimed that she actually tried to leave the show before the weddings took place, describing the experience of knowing she’d have to jilt Mark as “psychological warfare.”
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When asked by Entertainment Weekly whether she’d been given the opportunity to end her relationship with Mark before the wedding, Jessica responded: “I don’t know if I’m allowed to answer that question,” before being given the green light by the Netflix rep to answer. She said: “OK, Yeah. I mean, I had to stay. I definitely had a conversation about leaving and I wasn’t able to do that.”
“It was psychological warfare,” she went on. “Because when you’re planning a wedding with someone — I knew I didn’t want to marry him. We weren’t ready for that. We weren’t ready to marry each other in that allotted amount of time we had.”
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“We definitely had love for each other. I just wasn’t fully in love with him so planning a wedding was a really, really difficult thing to do,” she added.
However an executive producer of the show, Chris Coelen, has now responded to Jessica’s claims, refuting the notion that contestants were “forced” into situations they weren’t happy with.
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“I know she gets a lot of vitriol on social media, but she could’ve walked away. She definitely could have,” Chris told Metro. “I feel like she was very confused and very conflicted.”
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“Nobody had to do anything,” he went on. “If they found someone, they could choose to propose. They could then choose to accept that or not accept that. If they got engaged, they knew there would be a wedding day that was set four weeks from their engagement.”
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“If they showed up at the wedding or didn’t show up — all of that was their decision,” he added.
In fact, Chris also revealed he was “really scared” by the prospect of nobody getting engaged and the show falling apart.
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“There was no guarantee … which, as a producer, is really scary,” he said. “I was happily surprised at how it succeeded.”
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