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Read the fascinating Love is Blind lawsuit: Are reality show cast employees?

Read the fascinating Love is Blind lawsuit: Are reality show cast employees?
Two of Love is Blind season 2 contestants in their pods. Are they employees working? (Image via Netflix)

Are reality TV show cast members employees? That’s the central question behind a lawsuit filed by a Love is Blind season 2 contestant.

While the lawsuit reveals some fascinating things about the Netflix dating/marriage show, it’s not complaining about, say, the editing.

Instead, it’s ultimately an argument that reality TV show cast members should be treated as employees, instead of as independent contractors, and has the potential to shake up an industry that has long relied on low costs to make big profits.

Jeremy Hartwell sued Netflix, Kinetic Content, and the casting company Delirium TV over the working conditions the cast was subjected to. He wants the lawsuit to be certified as a class action, on behalf of not just Love is Blind participants, but other cast members of Kinetic Content shows produced for Netflix.

While the lawsuit was filed June 28, news about it broke last week, but none of the stories I read included the full lawsuit.

So I paid $22.20 to download it from the L.A. County Superior Courts website, and now you can read it, in full, below. Let’s take a look at its claims.

What the lawsuit reveals about Love is Blind

Love is Blind season 1, episode 2
An early reveal on Love is Blind, because Netflix has no press photos available from later episodes. (Image from Love is Blind via Netflix)

The lawsuit’s includes some interesting information and claims about the production:

  • Love is Blind cast members’ stipend was $1,000 a week—for workdays that lasted 20+ hours
  • The maximum stipend was $8,000
  • The cast was not allowed to talk about how much they were being paid.
  • Production for season two began April 24, 2021 
  • The cast has still not been paid—for a show that filmed in 2021 and aired earlier this year

There’s more:

  • The cast stays in a hotel, and was transported between the hotel and the set, but were not allowed to have their own hotel keys.
  • The lawsuit says producers “required access to and control of” social media—even after filming—and the cast was also required to promote the show on their social channels.

The headline-grabbing claims were what it calls “inhumane working conditions”:

  • The cast was “refused timely food and water”
  • “food was restricted to the point of severe hunger,” including that producers “instructed the hotel staff to not provide food”
  • The cast got alcoholic beverages and mixers, but not water, which was “strictly limited”
  • The cast was “Forced to perform in various states of fatigue, hunger, and drunkenness”

While not having “timely food and water” would make sense for a survival show like Survivor or Naked and Afraid that involves deprivation as part of its format, Love is Blind has no reason for not providing food.

The contestants are staying in a hotel. Why not let them order room service? Why not give them cases of water and snacks? I can understand not wanting them to mingle with each other off-camera, but there’s no reason to prohibit them from eating.

In a statement to Realscreen, Kinetic Content said:

Mr. Hartwell’s involvement in season 2 of Love Is Blind lasted less than one week. Unfortunately for Mr. Hartwell, his journey ended early after he failed to develop a significant connection with any other participant. While we will not speculate as to his motives for filing the lawsuit, there is absolutely no merit to Mr. Hartwell’s allegations, and we will vigorously defend against his claims.

I’m not sure that accusing someone of not finding a life partner in a few days of talking to a wall on a contrived reality show is a great defense when accused of not giving people water or food for no reason, but what do I know.

It’s notable that Hartwell first filed a complaint with the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency of “the alleged Labor Code violations committed by Defendants, including the facts and theories supporting these claims,” and that complaint is part of the lawsuit below. Only after it did not respond did his attorneys sue.

As to why he did that, Jeremy Hartwell wrote on Instagram:

This is truly about nothing but justice, for everyone who suffered while on these shows. It is exactly because of my limited airtime that I am in a unique position to take this risk and show others, many of whom went through far worse than me, that they can tell their story.

What this might mean for reality TV

The pods in Love is Blind season 2
The pods in Love is Blind season 2. (Image via Netflix)

On page two is the lawsuit’s central claim: “Defendants willfully misclassified employees as independent contractors” who “were in reality employees that were entitled to protections under California law.”

It goes on to provide a detailed accounting of the production’s failure to meet labor law. Specifically, things such as “failure to pay overtime wages, failure to pay minimum wages, failure to provide wage statements, failure to provide meal breaks, failure to provide rest breaks, failure to pay wages promptly after termination”.

A few examples of the claimed violations related to employment:

  • no “off-duty meal periods as required by California law”
  • no record of “total hours worked, total wages owed, and applicable rates of pay, as required by Labor Code § 226”
  • “worked in excess of four hours or a major fraction thereof during workdays without being provided at least a ten-minute rest period”
  • “worked shifts with an excess of 10 hours between meals Defendants also failed and continue to fail to provide a third or fourth rest periods where required by law, including on occasions where Class Members worked in excess of 10 hours”

Some of the lawsuit’s examples are practices that will sound very familiar to anyone familiar with reality TV production.

For example, Love is Blind cast members had to agree to medical, psychiatric, and background checks to be considered for employment.

That’s extremely standard; during finals casting of Big Brother, for example, potential contestants meet with more than one psychologist, and undergo medical checks.

But those practices are barred in California for companies hiring employees. For example, the production asked about past felony convictions during casting, but California law prohibits employers from asking about criminal convictions before actually offering employment.

And then there’s the matter of pay. A stipend of $1,000 a week—equivalent to a salary of $52,000 a year—seems reasonable, but that’s not for 40 hours worth of work. The lawsuit says they worked “up to twenty (20) hour days”—which would be “effectively as little as $7.14 per hour,” which is half of the $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles.

And they didn’t even get paid that, the lawsuit claims. If it’s true that the cast still—as of the lawsuit’s filing at the end of June—has not been been paid for work they did in 2021, for a show that already aired in 2022, that’s shocking.

There is no excuse for Love is Blind not paying cast members their small stipends more than one year after production concluded. You cannot pay for rent or health insurance with “exposure” or Instagram followers.

Again, though, this is common for the industry: Survivor winners don’t get their $1 million—nor does the cast get their small stipends—until the finale of their season airs.

Yet seeing all of these claims together makes me wonder if we’re just used to all of this as standard practice, or if it’s actually indefensible.

Netflix is a company worth $84 billion, and Forbes named it the fourth-largest media company in the world. And Love is Blind is one of Netflix’s biggest unscripted hits, which is why Netflix renewed it for two more seasons, plus international versions. After it premiered, the show was in “the Top 10 in 54 countries,” Netflix said.

Companies like Netflix (and Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount Global, and Comcast/NBCUniversal, and Fox) make millions and millions of dollars off of shows that would not exist without their cast.

Part of what makes reality TV cheap and super-profitable is that networks and streaming services don’t pay much for shows, and those tiny budgets mean cast is not paid like scripted talent. Of course actors are trained craftspeople, and I’m not arguing that they be compensated the same way.

But is paying cast members minimum wage too much to ask? Is being able to order room service or GrubHub too much to ask for a non-survival show? Is giving someone bottles of water when they want it too much to ask?

I think it’s time for a change in the way reality TV producers and buyers do business.

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About the author

  • Andy Dehnart

    Andy Dehnart is the creator of reality blurred and a writer and teacher who obsessively and critically covers reality TV and unscripted entertainment, focusing on how it’s made and what it means.

Discussion: your turn

I think of writing about television as the start of a conversation, and I value your contributions to that conversation. We’ve created a community that connects people through open and thoughtful conversations about the TV we’re watching and the stories about it.

To share our perspectives and exchange ideas in a welcoming, supportive space, I’ve created these rules for commenting here. By commenting below, you confirm that you’ve read and agree to those rules.

Happy discussing!

Mikal

Thursday 4th of August 2022

As someone who knows people who have worked on this show, this is a Kinetic Content thing more than a Netflix thing. Check the reviews on how employees who work there feel on Glassdoor. They pay their employees poorly (not illegally poorly, just by industry standards). Allegedly, not a very ethical company, but at the end of the day Netflix does do business with them, so they need to check in on these things too

Andy Dehnart

Friday 5th of August 2022

Thanks! The Glassdoor reviews are very interesting/disappointing. I know everyone's working with limited budgets, but not paying for housing/hotel for the DP and audio supervisor? Yikes.

inhumans99

Tuesday 19th of July 2022

I think the no water thing for the contestants on the show (I have not watched, but am generally aware of the point of the show) is because they wanted them off-balance in front of the camera, so they get liquor but no water. Liquor would cause folks tongues to loosen up on camera, etc., but it is still odd because the water content in an alcoholic drink will not be a substitute for keeping one's body well hydrated. We all need to drink pure water on a fairly regular basis to stay healthy.

The pitiful pay I can see folks behind the show trying to get away with, but it is a bad look for the folks behind the show even if a judge rules against paying contestants more money for their time and/or work on the show.

Also, again I kind-of get why they did not want folks to have their own hotel keys, less chance of someone losing their key and someone else using it in a way that breaches security on the show, or reveals behind the scenes info that could hurt the show when it airs on Netflix, but I would also feel like I am in a jury that was forced to be sequestered and could not enter/leave my room without the express permission of the Judge presiding over the case, an odd feeling indeed but I like to think that some of the anti-leak/security measures endured by the contestants/castmates was not entirely a surprise to anyone involved with the show.

Not defending the folks behind the show but there are always two sides to a story (to make an odd pivot to the folks who went in front of a judge for their actions during the January 6th coup attempt, a judge listened to quite a few folks explanations as to why they were in D.C., and what they did that day, and ended up letting them off with basically a slap on the wrist, other folks involved during the events of that day, they were not so lucky and may have seen the inside of a jail cell).

Andy is right that for certain shows like Survivor, not being spoon-fed food/water by the producers of the show is or should be 100% expected by the shows contestants, and even then, if Jeff is told by Medical that he needs to feed/hydrate the players on Survivor because they are doing a piss poor job of catching food and boiling water so it is safe to drink, then Jeff listens to Medical and finds an excuse to provide extra food to the contestants.

For this show, I am not sure the showrunners can go there...curious why the water/food in-take of the cast/contestants was arguably over zealously monitored by the folks behind the camera.

Kyle

Tuesday 19th of July 2022

I'm curious why California employment law has standing in this case. Was the company dumb enough to hire people in one state and film in another? I'm not a legal expert, but I would think that the employment laws of the state you worked in would apply to employment related lawsuits.

Darrel

Wednesday 20th of July 2022

@Kyle, It looks like the lawsuit is using the fact that the applicable companies primarily do business out of Los Angeles [despite being incorporated in Delaware, as many businesses are] to bring California law into effect. From a plaintiff standpoint, it's definitely a good move as well, as California laws will be much more strict on employer requirements than the applicable laws from Delaware or elsewhere.

As well, since it's being brought as a class action lawsuit, the individual taping locations matter less, since they're trying to bring the suit on behalf of all cast members, meaning a plethora of possible locations that the shows and disputed actions could have actually taken place in.

Kyle

Tuesday 19th of July 2022

@Kyle, I guess I should have read the lawsuit... but I thought for sure the first season was in Atlanta. The third season is supposedly in Dallas. In the second season, everyone is from Chicago. Do they film the first week of the show (in the pods) in LA and the rest on location elsewhere? I think providing reasonable food and water is non-negotiable, but when making a minimum wage argument I would imagine you have to factor in the benefits of room & board.

Darrel

Monday 18th of July 2022

Just because the set has octagonal pods doesn't mean that the cast should be treated like they're on Solitary.