What a ‘Love Is Blind’ labor filing could mean for reality TV

The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint on Wednesday saying that the contestants on Netflix’s hit dating reality series “Love Is Blind” should be considered employees. In the complaint, which lists former “Love Is Blind” contestants Renee Poche and Nick Thompson as charging parties, producers of “Love Is Blind” are accused of engaging in multiple unfair labor practices, including misclassifying cast members as nonemployee “participants.” This classification, according to the complaint, means that contestants are inhibited from engaging in certain activities, such as collective bargaining, and deprives them of workplace protections guaranteed to employees under the National Labor Relations Act. More mistreatment allegations were detailed in an April 2023 Insider report, in which multiple contestants spoke out about the conditions inside the Netflix series, alleging that they had experienced “emotional warfare.” Kinetic Content has denied the allegations in both the lawsuit and the Insider report, but in an interview with Variety, Chris Coelen, CEO of Kinetic and showrunner of “Love Is Blind,” defended the show’s working conditions. Unless a settlement is reached first, an administrative law judge with the NLRB will hear the case and decide whether producers of “Love Is Blind” violated the National Labor Relations Act.