Love Is Blind star releases film he says is based on real experiences on hit Netflix dating show after accusing producers of 'manipulation'

Nick Thompson, who appeared on season 2 of Love is Blind and married co-star Danielle Ruhl, has also called for reality shows to be subject to new rules as he releases the film.

As per the format of the show, Nick proposed to his future wife Danielle sight unseen after getting to know her in the pods. When it came to their wedding day, in summer 2021, they said ‘I do’ and legally wed. However, after a year of marriage they announced their split in August 2022.

Nick has now alleged that he and his co-stars felt manipulated by the production team in order to get a reaction. He did not name who he was referring to. To tell his story, he’s the executive producer of a new film called HIM which follows five women as they film a Bachelor-style series and slowly realise that those behind-the-scenes dictate what happens to them and how the viewers perceive them.

Speaking to The US Sun, Nick said the film connected to his own personal experience on a dating reality show. Speaking about his time on LIB four years ago, he said: “What I didn't anticipate is the level of control and the level of manipulation.”

He claimed that producers would have control over every element of his life during the filming period, including basic functions. "From like the highest form of being removed from the structure of your everyday life, and your support systems gone, to you're not eating at the times you would normally eat, or drinking at the times you would normally, walks, or sunlight, the importance of these basic things that we take for granted every day, and the impact that has on your mental health and your physical health.”

“Then on top of that, the information that you're getting – and that they're getting in this film – isn't real. It's not an accurate depiction. They're forcing a narrative that you're unknowingly a part of,” he added. He did not say what details he was given during his time on the show weren’t real.

In the film, five girls who are about to begin their dating show journey are presented with their contracts, in which they agree to a potentially “inaccurate and dishonest portrayal” of themselves on screen.

They later regret it, however, when they discover an incriminating iPad showing just how much producers are pulling the strings. They find out they have been purposefully left hungry, been made them relive awkward conversations, and have also been feed inaccurate information.

This was something Nick claims he felt first hand on Love Is Blind – and something he did not quite realise he was signing up for when he put his signature on the “29-30 page” contract he was given.

“The contract for Love is Blind, you can see season five's publicly, and there's literally sections in there about how they can defame you, you will be subject to public ridicule, you might be misrepresented. This language is in the contracts,” he said.

“You're an active participant, yes, but you don't always know the narrative and the story that they're going to tell. So when these shows come out, you're watching it as a viewer and as a participant for the first time with the whole world. So when you find yourself misrepresented on something, you find out at the same time the whole rest of the world does.”

“I know from my experience, when I read it, I was like ‘well I don't do anything out of character. They're not going to be able to, nothing bad can happen'. I'm sure that most people have that feeling when they do it, because very few people think they're a bad person or think that they're doing something wrong when they're doing it.

He went on: “Very few times do people deliberately make a decision knowing it's the wrong decision, and so we're saying the wrong thing, or people get reactive in high emotional situations. So you read this, and you don't really think anything of it. It's just like ‘I'm just going to be me. I'm likable'.

“But you're likable as you are to the people in your life, but then as you are portrayed via edits, or purposeful stories that they're trying to tell, you really don't have a lot of control over how you're portrayed, even if you think you do.”

A representative for Love is Blind or Netflix has not responded to Nick’s claims or spoken out on the film.

Since appearing on Love Is Blind, Nick founded the UCAN Foundation, a non-profit aiming to provide legal and mental health resources for those who have appeared on reality shows, as well as asking for better industry practices and ethical treatment.

As part of this, he has called for small edits to the show themselves, including asking producers to include statement at the beginning of episodes which reads that what follows on-screen is not all that was recorded as part of the show, reminding viewers that reality shows are edited in an attempt to stop any potential backlash against participants.

Explaining why, Nick said: “In the pods in the US, we're filming 16/18/20 hours a day, you're miked the entire time, you're on video most of the time. During that time, you're giving so much content, so much context, that then gets sort of whittled down into this 2/3/4-minute segment that actually took place over a three-hour date in the pods. So the context is lacking.”

“I think of it in this way where my relationship was followed for seven/eight weeks, including a wedding, and we’re around an hour and 14 minutes, total, across all 10 episodes.”

Nick is so passionate about this that he launched a petition on moveon.org 18 months ago calling for a disclaimer to be put at the front of reality shows to remind people that it's edited for storyline purposes and should be viewed as entertainment only. More than 35,000 signatures have been received on the petition at the time of writing, on the afternoon of Thursday May 21.

Now, Nick is also hoping the film HIM, which will be released on Friday May 30 on Apple TV, will also tell the truth about what it’s like to be on a reality show in an entertaining way. “It's very satirical, and that is something that was important to me, because I think if you're going to reach the audiences and really drive awareness, you can't just always be this dense hammer,” he said.

In September 2022, Nick and Danielle both posted separate statements to their social media. She wrote: "It has taken some time to publicly speak about my marriage ending, as emotions are still raw. I'll always care about Nick and appreciate our time together. As a wise woman said - choose yourself."

Meanwhile, he shared: "I am heartbroken my marriage ended. I know in my heart that I did the best I could and gave it everything I had."

Danielle later gave more details online: “There was no catastrophe that had happened," the reality star said. "And a lot of people had also assumed that there was some sort of incentive for the couples to stay together for a year and that wasn't the case."

The TV bride also denied that she and Nick were "faking anything" for the show. "We didn't stay together for a year because it was fake — we truly love each other, and that's why this breakup was incredibly hard, it's why it's taken us so long to talk about it," she said.

Several other Love is Blind couples have split up around a year after marrying on the show, making it seem as if the show has a 12 month curse. However, many other LIB couples from both the UK and US version have also remained married for many years.