How was filming ‘Love is Blind’ in Charlotte? Local couples reveal best and worst moments

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a new season of “Love is Blind” has dropped on Netflix, featuring dozens of Charlotte singles looking for love behind closed doors to date and getting engaged — all before meeting in person.

The dating experiment started with 30 local men and women in the pods, but (spoiler alert) five couples left the pods together.

Ahead of the season’s premiere and the release of the first few episodes, we got to hear from some of the local stars about their experiences on the reality show, including their best and worst moments of the experiment.

While they couldn’t give away all the details on how things turned out after the show, here’s what they told CharlotteFive about how they were feeling behind the scenes. Note: We spoke to the men and the women in separate interviews, and we’ve combined their answers here.

CharlotteFive: With Charlotte being such a small town, were you worried about potentially bumping into someone you already knew?

Johnny: “I feel, like, yes. But I don’t know, Charlotte is still like … it’s a small town in the fact that, like, you see a lot of people. But at the same time, it’s … what are the chances?”

Trevor: “I wasn’t worried it was gonna be someone I know very well, but I feel like it could’ve been someone I met one time and like, it probably really wouldn’t register if it was just someone you met ’cause you don’t get to see them right away.”

Clay: “I didn’t have that fear. I felt as though that I didn’t date around too much in Charlotte where I’ll see someone I’ve known, and plus, I just moved to Charlotte two years ago, so it wasn’t like I knew everybody there.”

Jess: “Yes. I’m from Charlotte and have lived there my entire life so I thought it was — I was almost certain that I would find someone I knew there.”

Amy: “I feel like that was my biggest fear, too. I feel like everybody knows each other in Charlotte so I was just scared that I would run into somebody from the past, but luckily that was not the case.”

AD: “I definitely had the same fear. I work in a very specific, well used to work in a very specific area and with the same people — very small town vibes — and I just knew for sure that someone I knew was gonna be on there, but they did their magic.”

CharlotteFive: Were there any contestants you later found out that you did know of or recognized?

For both the men and women, they all said they didn’t recognize any of the other contestants, but Clay did share one coincidence he later realized.

Clay: “I’ve heard of AD before. It’s actually funny. Someone showed me her Instagram, like when I first moved here. But, like, I never, like, put two and two together.”

CharlotteFive: What made you think you’d have better luck finding your person on ‘Love is Blind’ rather than the dating apps or meeting someone face to face?

Clay: “I never was a big dating app type of guy. And I will tell you, my mom was a big proponent of me joining this show. She was a big advocate. She said that, you know, ’cause I usually lean with trying to, you know, identify the physical features instead of building an emotional connection. So my mom thought it’d be a good opportunity for me to drop that and actually find some real love. It’s actually funny. She was actually talking about “Marriage at First Sight” not “Love is Blind” … so she actually gave me the wrong show to join, but hey it’s all good. It worked out.”

AD: “The dating apps, honestly, I think they should eliminate the bio, anything to get to know you ’cause none of that matters. It’s just, ‘What is that first picture, do you capture my attention, and if so, then now I wanna talk to you’ but only for a short amount of time. And so with “Love is Blind,” that eliminates everything. It’s like the opposite. It takes the photos out and now it’s just strictly bio, who you are, what you have to offer, and that’s where I’m judged. I think being able to do that in reverse changed the game for me.”

CharlotteFive: Knowing what you know now, would you do the experiment again?

Trevor: “Absolutely I would do the experiment again. I loved going through everything with the experiment, from like the lounge, like, getting to know, like, my best friends to getting to a know a girl before judging them by their looks or having them judge me by my looks. I would definitely do it again.”

Jess: “Absolutely. I would do it 100 times over. If I could somehow change that to be, like, my normal dating style, I would do that. Like AD said, having to lead with what honestly really matters and substance … like, that’s such a better plan for success and long-term relationships and marriage. So yes, I would definitely do it again.”

CharlotteFive: What were your highs and lows from the overall experiment?

Johnny: “I’d say high was, I mean honestly just going to the DR (Dominican Republic). I feel like that was a really cool experience just because I’ve never actually left the country before, so being able to do that with my new fiance was absolutely amazing.

“Lows was … so during production, like during the couple days in the pods, we’d always get talked to by the creator, Chris, and he’d say, ‘Hey, like you know the topic of the day is gonna be this specific topic.’ But he’d also bring into the fact, ‘Oh, by the way, so and so decided to leave.’ And I remember one day, ‘cause there’s two Amys, Amy Cai had left. And he said, ‘Oh, Amy left,’ and I felt this, like, my world shake ‘cause he just said Amy. And I was like ‘Oh my God. I lost her. This is not good. Last night, I talked to her and I was like, ‘I have to see you again. She was like, ‘Yes. I have to see you, too,’ and we were so, like, locked into seeing each other the next day.

“So that really affected me a lot, like, that morning and then, I don’t know, I realized on like the next date I had, probably like a couple hours later, that that was Amy (Cai) and I was like, ‘Oh thank God. You aren’t home. Like, I thought I lost you, but I didn’t lose her. It was really nice.”

Trevor: “I’m gonna say mine was the same scene, my high and my low. The scene where Chelsea had to end things with me in the pods. Obviously a low ’cause I was let down and I wasn’t expecting it, but I think it was a high for me because of how I handled it.

“I was really proud of myself to not, like, be upset with her. I was genuinely happy that she was happy, and I think the old me might’ve been a little hurt and said something I didn’t mean in the moment. So I was just happy and proud of myself, how I handled that.”

Jess: “Mine was definitely the relationships I made with the girls so quickly that are forever friendships now, and definitely the lowest point was probably realizing I wasn’t gonna get proposed to.”

AD: “I think mine was a steady right. I don’t think I had peaks and really deep valleys. I think that was life, and I experienced it the way I was supposed to experience it.”

How to watch ‘Love is Blind’

You can catch the first six episodes of “Love is Blind” on Netflix, and look out for new episodes released each Wednesday.