Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind have similarities between each other because they are run by the same production company, Kinetic Content. Married at First Sight premiered in 2014 on Lifetime network, and MAFS season 18 is currently airing. Love Is Blind is certainly the younger of the two powerhouse shows, and appears on Netflix. LIB premiered in February 2020, and Love Is Blind season 7 just finished airing in October 2024. MAFS has historically taken six month long hiatuses between seasons, while LIB has produces seasons faster.
Love Is Blind season 8 is set to premiere in February 2025, so that is only a four-month break in between seasons. Married at First Sight also airs for much longer than LIB seasons. MAFS season 17 was the longest season in franchise history, as it aired from mid-October 2023 to late April 2024. Love Is Blind seasons typically get released in the vacuum of one month, as episodes are released in chunks weekly. Regardless of the formatting, both shows are extremely popular among viewers, and they share other similarities.
Kwame Appiah Auditioned For MAFS But Was Cast On LIB
Cast Crossover
Since Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind are both produced by Kinetic Content, access is shared between the casting choices for each show. This was apparent when Love Is Blind season 4 cast member Kwame Appiah was spotted by a Married at First Sight fan in an audition clip that aired during the MAFS season 9 reunion. Kwame would have been auditioning for MAFS season 10, which took place in Washington D.C. In the clip, Kwame could be heard saying he was ready for love.
LIB season 4 took place in Seattle, so it’s possible he sent a general audition video, or that his interview clip was played because he was a strong candidate for a different season. No MAFS seasons have taken place in Seattle thus far. Him not being cast for MAFS but going on to be cast in LIB season 4, signifies that Kinetic likely thought he would be better suited for Love Is Blind. And they were right. Kwame found love with Chelsea Griffith in LIB, and the two are still happily married, with Chelsea even working in LIB casting now.
Kwame is the only MAFS and LIB cast crossover that is currently known, but it may not be out of the question for there to be future crossovers. Since both shows are about people trying to find their forever person in a unique and experimental way, the casting pool and motivations for each show are similar.
Sharing a casting pool between both shows signifies that while one show may not have the people they are looking for in its casting population, one from the other may be better suited.
Kinetic Doesn’t Do Deep Enough Dives Into Cast Choices
They’ve Let Shady Characters On The Shows
One of the major downfalls of both shows has been that the casting choices have historically not been properly vetted. For example, LIB season 7’s Tyler Francis hid the fact that he had three kids from production and his now-wife until he made it out of the pods and was confronted with it. Moreover, LIB season 5’s Carter Wall had a criminal record that was not uncovered, and his fiancée, Renee Poche made allegations about Carter’s aggressive behavior.
In MAFS, season 3 cast member David Norton had a violent past and criminal background that was missed by production.
Kinetic Content has demonstrated that they are not thorough enough with their background checks, and that has led to shady characters being cast on both shows.
Having that happened has discredited both shows, and showcased that Kinetic doesn’t care enough about their cast.
LIB & MAFS Cast Clout Chasers
Kinetic Doesn’t See Through Dubious Cast Intentions
Another similarity that lies between Love Is Blind and Married at First Sight is the number of people that have been cast who have been obvious clout chasers. While it has been a more prominent problem with LIB, it’s happened with MAFS too. MAFS season 16’s Jasmine Secrest was a beauty pageant queen and dog breeder who seemed to use the show for exposure. In LIB, cast like Nick Dorka, Deepti Vempati, Jessica Vestal, have all catapulted themselves into the public eye, and seemed to have motivations to do so by their reality TV appearances.
With LIB, cast members have the potential to appear on other reality TV shows, like Perfect Match or The Traitors, so there is incentive to stand out in the seasons and carry on a public persona that suits their best interests. For MAFS, the platform has been around for a long time, and cast members have the potential to level up their Instagram followers and drum up interest in their other pursuits, like podcasting. Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind‘s similarities due to their Kinetic Content production hosting are obvious, and more could even be revealed with time.
