'Love Is Blind' Fans Are Over Nick and Vanessa Lachey — Petition for New Hosts Resurfaces

There is no denying that Netflix's Love Is Blind Season 4 reunion got off to a rocky start. However, it wasn't long before fans turned their attention from the non-live reunion to the show's hosts, Nick and Vanessa Lachey.

"I'm begging for literally anyone besides Nick and Vanessa Lachey to host [Love Is Blind]. Nick does nothing but make cringe jokes and Vanessa seems like a desperate mom trying to relate to her kids," one viewer tweeted before another added, "Nick and Vanessa Lachey are continuing to show they can’t host or conduct interviews at all."

Not only that, but a petition to remove the hosts has resurfaced.

Are they really that bad? Or was the live reunion doomed from the beginning?

When Love Is Blind premiered in 2020, the timing could not have been better. A show about falling in love with someone, sight unseen, while locked in a pod, airing in the middle of a global pandemic — it quickly became a cultural phenomenon as people watched secluded in their own "pods." Variety reported that 30 million viewers streamed Season 1 of Love Is Blind.

At the time, no one questioned Netflix's choice for hosts, Nick and Vanessa Lachey — one a former boy bander and the other a former MTV VJ (who met and fell in love on television, sort of).

However, four seasons later, the social experiment is now a bona fide reality TV hit, so the stakes are higher and fans expect more from the streaming platform — especially when it comes to the hosts, and their abilities to get the answers viewers want (and deserve) during a reunion episode.

Now, fans have their pitchforks ready and are pushing Netflix to bring in new hosts.

Baby ... the Love Is Blind fan collective has had enough of Nick and Vanessa. After what many are calling an epic fail of a live reunion — from the delay to biased questioning (more on that later!) — fans are ready to see new hosts lead the show.

In fact, an official Change.org petition, created by a person named Libby Cross, has resurfaced. The petition is requesting the removal of the Lacheys from their hosting duties.

Interestingly, the petition — titled "Remove Nick and Vanessa Lachey as the Hosts of Love is Blind” — was created back in October 2022. However, after a controversial Season 4 "live" reunion, the petition gained 15,000 supporters as of April 18, 2023. As of this writing, it has received over 21,000 signatures and counting.

The end goal for the petition is to receive 25,000 signatures in hopes that Netflix will take immediate action.

"Love is Blind is a reality based TV show that allows couples to date and choose their partner without ever seeing them," the petition reads. "The show has had a ton of success but has one large problem — the hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey."

As Libby continues, she points out the Lacheys as "useless and out of place" and focusing on "directing attention to themselves."

Libby ended the petition by sharing a call to action with fans of Love Is Blind to help spark change and influence Netflix to bring in new hosts.

"Join the thousands of Love Is Blind fans in making the show evolve into the best version of itself by removing Nick and Vanessa Lachey as hosts and replacing them with…. Well literally anyone else," Libby shared.

During the Season 4 reunion, fans noted that Nick and Vanessa struggled with leading a successful reunion episode and compared the couple to reunion host extraordinaire Andy Cohen, who had his own thoughts on the reunion.

"Live reunions are a very bad idea," he shared on his podcast. "There is a reason [reunion episodes are] edited down. We could talk about a topic on a reunion taping for 25 minutes, for 45 minutes, before really getting to the heart of something. ... Reunion shows are almost like a fishing expedition. You’re talking about different topics [and] you don’t know what’s going to land [or] what’s going to hit."

For many, Nick and Vanessa do not have the correct fishing gear to successfully host Love Is Blind.

On TikTok, TV host and producer Franchesca Leigh Ramsey shared her insight into why the reunion episode was "so poorly made" and why fans are right to criticize Nick and Vanessa.

"Now a lot of people have already rightfully criticized that Nick and Vanessa were not great hosts. We've known that they're not great hosts throughout the seasons of the show... Vanessa's biggest problem as a host is she doesn't know how to listen," she explained.

"A lot of people think that the job as the host is to talk but listening is really the biggest skill necessary because you need to pull information from the guests, you need to direct them, and you need to use whatever they say in order to segue to the next person," Franchesca continued.

She added: "Vanessa just wants to hear herself talk, so she's trying to make jokes, she's stepping over people, she's doing these very awkward segues."

Vanessa was also accused of not being neutral and picking sides — particularly when it came to her Zoom interview with Jackie, whose leaked text messages went viral before the reunion and showed her using homophobic slurs against her ex Marshall (who also admitted to using slurs against Jackie).

For many, Vanessa did not hold Jackie accountable for her messages, along with her decision to meet fellow LIB contestant Josh for a coffee date just one day after breaking up with her fiancé Marshall. Many argued that Vanessa was acting like her "best friend."

The pressure she put on Paul for his comments about Micah not being nurturing was also called out, seeing as Micah had her fair share of mean-girl moments on the show. The list goes on and on...

However, Vanessa seemed to have a very different opinion about the reunion, writing on Instagram, "I’m so proud of this cast and their willingness to put themselves out there. It wasn’t easy and this has been a LONG process to get to the reunion. Please keep in mind online (and in life) that 'words have weight.' What you say to someone you don’t know (and don’t know the whole story to) can have a lasting affect on them… in many different ways."

Well, we already know Season 5 of Love Is Blind is filmed, with Nick and Vanessa as hosts, so if they were to be replaced it wouldn't happen until Season 6 (or beyond).