‘You’re Here to Find Husbands, and You Can’t Marry Each Other’

In the pods, clockwise from top left: Molly Mullaney, Monica Danús, Meg Fink, and Lauren O’Brien. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Netflix

Love Is Blind season eight was chock-full of some of the most demonic men this show has ever seen (Daniel excepted; Christmas, you’re safe). During the reunion, it came out that Devin Buckley kept his politics secret and was shady with money, Ben Mezzenga ghosted Sara Carton after saying he’d meet her in Nashville, and Joey Leveille never loved Monica Danús. The fact that Dave Bettenburg, who cited his sister as the reason for treating fiancée, Lauren O’Brien, like Hester Prynne and exhibited no backbone the entire season, came out of the reunion looking comparatively good tells you everything you need to know about the maturity level of this slate of dudes. After a frustratingly drama-less season, their exes served up a buffet of righteous anger, putting the guys on the spot for their crimes.

Their stories, notably, included lots of info about what happened both off-camera during filming and after the show, and the lack of documentation led multiple men to take the route of easiest escape: deny, deny, deny. But the women came prepared, chiming in to serve as witnesses and confirm each other’s stories. The female solidarity stemmed from bonds formed in the pods, says Molly Mullaney, who dated Bettenburg but went home when he decided to propose to O’Brien. “Those are the people you’re talking to about everything,” adds Meg Fink. “You see their faces, you see their body language. You have more of a physical relationship. It is very primary in your life in the pods because that’s tangible and the relationship with the guys isn’t yet.” Vulture gathered Danús, Mullaney, O’Brien, and Fink at a SXSW reunion watch party to dig into how the women formed their relationships over the course of production and kept them going even after the cameras left Minneapolis. “We did get a comment [from production] like, ‘Guys, remember, you’re here to find husbands and you can’t marry each other,’ Mullaney remembers. “And we all looked at each other like, ‘Are you sure?’”

A phrase that comes up a lot on Love Is Blind, and in discussions of it, is “girl’s girl.” What does it mean to be a “girl’s girl” on Love Is Blind?
Molly Mullaney: On the show, I wasn’t necessarily thinking in any of those moments, This is me being a girl’s girl. It was just me actually caring about Lauren and wanting to say how I felt. I guess I would say decentering men is probably how I think of the term “girl’s girl.” Making sure that men are not the most important priority — that’s how I feel is the best way to approach life.

What was the girls’ lounge like? We only see it when there’s drama, really.
Lauren O’Brien: In the first half of the pods, the lounge is fun and light and we’re making forts and we’re talking about running into James Lafferty [in L.A.]. We’re all bonding and enjoying each other’s company and this unique experience. Then, during the second half, feelings really started to develop and shit got a lot more real. You had to start thinking about, Okay, how do I need to approach this? Do I need to have a different mind-set?

In the lounge, are there rules or protocols about how the women should act around each other?
Meg Fink: It was so easy with this group that we didn’t need to speak about the rules. We all genuinely enjoyed each other so much. I don’t have one bad thing to say about any of these girls here because we’re all having so much fun. It was such a phenomenal group of women that they chose for our season. It made it really easy to love each other and have each other’s backs.

What does it mean to have each other’s backs?
Meg: Standing up for each other. When Molly said “decentering men,” I agree, but also just being open and honest and calling men out on the behavior you see. Like, “Hey, I see this as a problem. Let’s talk about it.” That can be scary to do. “I don’t like the way you’re treating my girl,” or, “I don’t like the way you’ve said that.”

Monica, it felt like from watching the show, you got engaged to Joey very quickly—
Monica Danús: It did look that way.

We didn’t see a lot of your interactions or uncertainties within the girls’ space because your story in the pod was done very quickly. What did we not see about your time in the lounge?
Monica: Everyone had the same amount of time, and we all had very similar, if not the same, conversations as everyone else. In the lounge, everything these women are experiencing, I was there right along with them: the forts and the bonding and the games. They didn’t show everything, of course, because we’re being filmed a ton and there’s not a lot of time. But I was there.

On Love Is Blind, there’s a constant game of telephone: The girls hear one thing; the boys say another. How do you navigate all those versions of the “truth.”
Molly: I understand that I can perceive something someone said in a different way than that person actually meant it. I think that happened a little bit throughout the time there. It’s hard because you’re perceiving things really quickly and you’re getting really excited and you’re not necessarily taking the time to ask more in-depth questions.

The thing I struggle with, clearly, is what I don’t necessarily notice. For instance, Lauren, I had no clue when I told her [that I was seeing Dave] that she made any type of reaction until watching it back. I was like, “Oh, I probably should have known that she felt a way about that.” But in my head I just was like, Oh yeah, Lauren would have said something to me. But Lauren’s a different person than me. And so it’s totally fair that she wanted to keep things closer to her vest.

Lauren: We were all just so excited about the potential of meeting our future husbands, and so you were excited about this person. I did not fault you for being excited about this guy, but I was also excited about him.

By necessity, the relationships among the women are the secondary relationships on the show. And yet, it seems like they are the relationships, largely, that you’ll have moving forward.
Molly: We knew that was happening as it was happening. We did get a comment [from production] like, “Guys, remember, you’re here to find husbands, and you can’t marry each other.” And we all looked at each other like, “Are you sure?”

Meg: Those are the people you’re talking to about everything. You see their faces, you see their body language. You have more of a physical relationship. It is very primary in your life in the pods because that’s tangible and the relationship with the guys isn’t yet.

Monica: The women helped support those primary relationships. We were there to find a husband but, just like in the real world, you talk to friends, you talk to families, you’re like, “Hey, I’m feeling this sort of way, but I heard this comment and it gives me pause and what do you think about this?” We bounced a lot of things off each other because we didn’t have access to our friends and family back home. So we became our friends and family.

Lauren and Monica, when you were filming after the pods, did you rely on these relationships to get you through?
Lauren: Oh, yes. We would have check-ins every couple of days with the five engaged girls: “Okay, where are you guys at?” Our relationship with our partner at the time was the most important thing, and it felt like we were the only ones going through it. It was so comforting to be like, “Okay, they’re going through shit.” It was very validating to hear how everyone was navigating things, and it made it so much more manageable for me.

Was there also a discussion of what it was like filming?
Monica: Yeah. We are normal people. We go to work and have our friends and family and watch TV. Going from that to having cameras around is jarring. It’s like, “This is crazy, this is not normal.” Plus, it’s a lot of hard-hitting questions and a lot of big feelings in a short amount of time. All of that coming together is really overwhelming. Talking with the other women, too, it’s like, “The cameras are a lot today. I’m feeling self-conscious. Do you guys feel this too?” We were validating each other, saying, “This isn’t normal, but it’s okay. You can get through it.”

Is what you get from the other women different from what you can get from your partner?
Monica: For sure. We were in our couples so often, siloed from each other, that together we would think, “Okay, we both think this is a little uncomfortable today. I wonder if this couple feels that, too, or we’re just crazy.” Bouncing feelings and conversations off of each other makes it feel more normal and grounded while we’re filming.

For Meg and Molly, I’m curious about what it was like to watch the relationships the show was following unfurl in real time.
Meg: I was concerned because I knew how intense of a process it was. I was reaching out to Monica a lot. We would talk, hang out. Sara, I would reach out to and just be like, “Hey, how are you doing? If you want to talk about anything, I’m here,” because it is such an intense process. The reality of it is we’ll never know what they went through.

Molly: We would obviously try to check in with them as well, but they were so busy. Their lives were crazy and so they’d send us little like, “Not doing great today but we’re pushing through.” We didn’t really have time to meet up and help them through it as much as we would want to. It was helpful for us, too, having the other girls that went through the pod process when we got back. I texted my family and friends and said, “I love you guys. One day I’ll tell you what happened, but I can’t do it yet.” Having a group of girls that knew what happened, knew how it felt, and could understand everything that went on in there was so important to me.

Lauren: The weekend after Dave and I broke up, I was done with my filming obligations, and I met up with a bunch of them at a bar. I had my own, like, college girlfriends in town, and it was so comforting to have them there, but I remember hugging you guys after the breakup. It was so comforting to be like, “You guys get it, and now we’re able to kind of share this trauma-bonding moment.”

Monica, you made it to the wedding. None of the girls would know, necessarily, what happened until you told them. How did you reconnect with the women after your wedding?
Monica: We all got together pretty quickly after the wedding, because mine was the second to last or the last wedding, and we were all kind of asking around. We didn’t know what the results were for other people’s weddings, so I would see Lauren in the hallway of the hotel and be like, “Hey, what happened? Tell me what’s going on.” We were communicating back and forth a little bit, but it took a little bit to sit down and be like, “Okay, everybody, how are you? I know the outcome — how are you feeling? Are you okay?” Meg and I are super close but, like you said, you don’t know exactly what I went through. I can tell you all day long and you can sympathize, but you’re like, “I don’t know what to say right now.” The girls that did go through it, they’re like, “I know exactly how you feel.”

At the reunion, it felt like the women were this united front. 
Lauren: The women came prepared.

You guys would corroborate each other’s stories! Were there conversations before the reunion about what that would look like?
Molly: We definitely had convos before. I know there were a lot of moments that I witnessed happen. I told the girls, “If you need me to jump in, I’ll say what I heard from my point of view.” That was how I prepared for it — just showing what I heard directly and trying to have their backs as much as possible.

Lauren, how did you prepare?
Lauren: I just processed my own breakup and my own relationship. I came mentally ready to speak on that outside of emotion. But I did have conversations with girls being like, I don’t need to fight anyone else’s battles. This is their relationship, this is their experience. I don’t want to chime in and change the narrative. I will totally support how I saw things if that aligned to them.

Meg, how did you approach the reunion?
Meg: I feel like all of us were like, “If it comes to it and I need to step in and be like, ‘absolutely not,’” we would do that. But all of us held our own and felt very passionate about this being the stage and the moment to speak our truth. We did not shy away from it. So while people did stick up for each other, I don’t even think we needed to because we all kind of rose up into our power and said what we needed to say, which at the end of the day is beautiful.

Was there a sense that everybody doing it made it easier?
Meg: I think so. I remember when all the girls were talking, I was like, “Let’s go.” Everyone’s nailing it down the line. Everyone’s saying exactly what they need to say, not leaving a crumb on the table, not leaving any unfinished business.

Monica: We knew the reunion was going to be hard. Especially coming from Minnesota, we’re not confrontational people. It’s extra hard for us to speak our truth. We all had that mutual understanding going in that this isn’t going to be necessarily fun but it is needed. Personally, it was needed: for healing, to let it go, and have the grieving process. I had to speak my truth, leave everything out there, and not have any regrets. Everyone has their story, and they are entitled to share it and get it out there on the table. We all had conversations that were like, “This is your time to own your story, have your voice, and to feel healed. We don’t want to take away your moment and your thunder, but if you need support, we will be here for you.”