Love Is Blind hosts Nick Lachey and wife Vanessa Lachey defended season 8 star Lauren O’Brien after her relationship with fiancé David “Dave” Bettenburg hit a road bump.
Dave, 33, became upset after learning that Lauren, 31, was in a casual relationship shortly before showing up to film season 8. Many fans have rallied around Lauren and said that they think Dave is being irrational, but Nick, 51, and Vanessa, 44, said it wasn’t so simple.
“I think everyone’s situation is different,” Vanessa said during an interview with Us Weekly published on Sunday, February 23. “It’s very important to not be seeing someone while you’re on the show — we’ve seen that play out or not play out so well. But there’s no right or wrong.”
The former NCIS: Hawaii star continued, “When you meet someone for the first time, and if you found out they just got out of a relationship, then you navigate that conflict. And [we’re] seeing how Lauren and David navigated that conflict, how what was important to him might not have been that important to her, or vice versa.”
While Nick added that Dave “felt it was gonna be a little awkward running into people that he knew,” that was a “part of life [and] it’s not a specific Love Is Blind issue.”
During episode 7 of Love Is Blind season 8, Lauren spoke to producers about how the situation came to light.
“So, Dave was like, ‘Did you date anyone before coming on here?’” Lauren explained while they were vacationing in Honduras. “I go, ‘I was, like, talking to someone a couple of months ago, but I wouldn’t have said that I dated them,’ but Dave has mutual friends with him. So I was giving [Dave] names and he’s like, ‘Oh I know him. I see him at the pool all the time.”
There was also another man that Lauren had gone on dates with whom Dave knew as well.
When the medical sales device salesman discussed the situation with Lauren, he said, “It is going to be weird for me that I know both of your exes. Not, like, well, but I know them. It’s a little weird that I know them. Again, I don’t know them well … And I don’t want that to affect our relationship when we go back. I asked you if you were seeing anyone right before this experiment started. Hearing that I was like, ‘OK …’”
Later, during a confessional, Dave said, “How do you go from seeing someone so recently to like, ‘I’m ready for marriage?’ That just seems like a huge step in between, where it’s like … how did you … I don’t know. That’s tough.”
Viewers saw Lauren and Dave continue to clash over her past relationships and by episode 9, he told her he wasn’t comfortable staying in their shared apartment and needed some space. Lauren later admitted that she felt a “shift” in Dave’s attitude after their phones were returned when she spoke with Vulture in an interview published on February 22.
However, fans won’t know exactly how their relationship panned out until the next episodes of Love Is Blind season 8 drop on Netflix on February 28.
