Love Is Blind Season 4 contestant Paul Peden feels as though Vanessa Lachey exhibited “bias” towards him during the reunion.
After a 19-hour-long fiasco that kept viewers waiting, Love Is Blind fans were finally able to watch the highly-anticipated live reunion this week.
Nick and Vanessa Lachey served as the reunion co-hosts once again for Season 4, talking with the couples who found love in the pods and got engaged sight unseen.
Among those couples were Paul Peden and Micah Lussier, the only duo who didn’t go through with saying “I do” at the altar.
Vanessa grilled Paul during the reunion, pressing him about comments he made about why he didn’t make Micah his bride, such as her lacking a “nurturing” nature and saying that he couldn’t see her as a mother.
Vanessa felt as though Paul should have made these comments clear to Micah before they walked down the aisle and didn’t let up on her stance.
Paul Peden says host Vanessa Lachey exhibited ‘personal bias’ during the Love Is Blind Season 4 reunion
Following the reunion, Paul caught up with Entertainment Tonight’s Will Marfuggi and talked about the “personal bias” he felt Vanessa exhibited.
Addressing Vanessa’s comments made on stage, Paul said, “I was like, ‘F**k man.’ They kept drilling, drilling it down on me. I think I said my piece. I think Vanessa might have had a little bit of personal bias in that scenario, or at least I kind of detected that. I don’t know.”
“But that’s just my assumption based on how she continued to drill into it after I gave my full rationale for why I felt the way that I did,” Paul added.
The 29-year-old environmental scientist noted that he didn’t feel he was allowed to fully say his piece.
Speaking of his decision to walk away from a marriage with Micah, Paul shared, “I think it was extremely reductive in the way that they dismissed all nuance and complexity in why I said no.”
According to Paul, his comments about Micah lacking a nurturing disposition and not being mother material were just one part of a complex equation.
“It was framed as, the reason that I said no was that she wasn’t able to fill a mothering role and a nurturing atmosphere and whatever,” Paul continued. “That was one piece of the puzzle.”
Love Is Blind viewers who watched Paul’s interview on YouTube headed to the comments section, where many of them sided with him.
Love Is Blind viewers side with Paul, take aim at Vanessa Lachey
One Netflix subscriber felt “SO GLAD” that Paul called out Vanessa over her “extreme bias” in favor of Micah.
Another felt as though Vanessa aimed to “villainize” Paul and was thankful that Zack Goytowski came to his rescue and called out Micah.
Another YouTube commenter expressed that Micah’s behavior made her seem manipulative and shouldn’t have been pegged the victim after Paul said “no” at the altar.
“Paul was very logical and articulate,” they wrote. “I don’t know what was so hard for Vanessa to understand.”
Although things didn’t work out with Micah, Paul gave love another try with a different contestant from the Netflix dating experiment. As Monsters and Critics previously reported, Paul dated Wendi Kong, a 28-year-old aerospace engineer based out of Seattle.
Although they had “insane” chemistry and went on some dates, Paul said he and Wendi were almost too similar, and ultimately, the timing wasn’t right.
Love Is Blind Season 4 is currently streaming on Netflix.