Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for the first six episodes of Love Is Blind Season 8.
Season 8 of Love Is Blind premiered on Friday, introducing viewers to a new crop of singles from Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota– including contestant Daniel Hastings, who may have known fellow contestant Taylor Haag’s identity before joining the Netflix series…and before Taylor agreed to marry him.
In the first six episodes of Season 8, viewers watched as 30-year-old Daniel and 32-year-old Taylor bonded in the pods over a mutual love of Christmas, Taco Bell, family and more, with some of their shared interests seeming too good to be true. In addition to Taylor revealing to Daniel that she has a Taco Bell tattoo after he name-dropped the fast food chain, Daniel later gifted Taylor his monogramed Christmas stocking, only for Taylor to tell him she already owned a matching one.
The topic of social media was also discussed by the pair in the pods, with Taylor sharing her Instagram handle with Daniel and jokingly asking if he followed her on the platform, to which Daniel responded, “I can’t imagine that I do.”
“I have a weird memory when it comes to Instagram handles,” he insisted. “And I can see the person’s profile picture in my head … I would recognize your Instagram handle and I don’t.”
Daniel ultimately popped the question to Taylor in the pods and the two went on to meet face-to-face for the first time during their reveal in Episode 6. While the reveal appeared to go smoothly for the pair, Taylor shared with viewers later in the episode that she suspected that Daniel knew who she was throughout the entire ‘Love Is Blind’ experiment, claiming she believed he had followed and unfollowed her on Instagram before joining the show.
Episode 6 concluded with Taylor sitting down with her fiancé to confront him about her concerns, which Daniel denied, despite Taylor recalling a specific Christmas photo she had seen on his Instagram page after he (allegedly) followed her.
Following Friday’s premiere of ‘Love Is Blind,’ Taylor spoke to Glamour about the Episode 6 cliffhanger, as well as her suspicions about Daniel’s pre-‘Love Is Blind’ Instagram activity.
“The primary concern was that he knew what I looked like during the experiment,” she explained, telling the outlet that if Daniel knew who she was before joining the show, it would defeat the whole purpose of the pods.
Taylor admitted that she’s been guilty herself of “judging people off their looks” and that she’s certain it has happened to her as well, which was part of the reason she wanted to be on ‘Love Is Blind.’
“ … the thought of that very premise being compromised was terrifying to me,” she said. “It just scared me. We’re operating on very limited information at the time. We don’t have our devices, we don’t have our people to talk to and bounce ideas off of. We’re running on minimal sleep and we’re running on adrenaline. There was so many factors playing into it.”
Despite the possibility that her fiancé knew her identity all along, Taylor said she didn’t believe it was a stalking situation and even complimented Daniel for treating her “so well in the pods.” Still, she admitted that seeing the situation between her and Daniel being a main focus in both the Season 8 teaser and trailer made her anxious, as she believes that particular storyline is getting more attention than it deserves.
“I’ve had a lot of anxiety about this bit of the story that happened because I thought it was going to be made into a bigger thing that it really was at the time,” she said. “It was in the teaser. It was in the trailer. I knew it was going to be a part of the storyline for me, but I just feel like it’s a lot more hype than it needs to be.”
‘Love Is Blind’ hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey have also weighed in on the Taylor and Daniel drama, with the husband and wife revealing to Us Weekly that they have different opinions on the situation.
“If someone is following you and does know a lot about you, is that fair?” Vanessa asked, adding that knowing who a person is before going on the show prevents you from truly getting to know the person.
“ … [Taylor] had a little voice in the back of her head and I’m really proud of her for speaking up on it,” she continued. “Nick, again, was like, ‘I don’t think that it was that big of a deal,’ but I understood why it was a big deal to [Taylor] and I think that they handled it beautifully.”
Vanessa also said that leading up to the cliffhanger in Episode 6, both she and Nick believed Taylor and Daniel were “gonna be golden” as a couple, and that they were both surprised when Taylor revealed her concerns about Daniel at the end of the episode.
“Every season is unique and specific and different,” Nick said. “We’ve never seen that particular scenario play out before. That’s what keeps it exciting for us.”
While viewers will have to wait to find out how Taylor and Daniel’s conversation– and relationship– turned out, Taylor wants fans to keep something in mind when watching the next batch of episodes released on Netflix.
“I would like people to remember the character that Daniel showed throughout the pod experience up to this point,” she said.
New episodes of ‘Love Is Blind’ drop February 21 on Netflix.
(Photos: Netflix; Instagram)
2 Responses
Thank you for covering this show.
They need to vet these folks a lot better. Every season it’s these fame whores and creeps. This is creepy.
What, he couldn’t approach her IRL, had to trap her in the pod to get her attention? Creepy.
I have not watched any of the episodes yet, so this is a bit of a spoiler for me. Although I find the pods and connecting relatively uninteresting compared to once they start living together and the drama really begins.