Matt Barnett, Amber Pike, and Jessica Batten’s love triangle was a major storyline during the first few episodes of Love is Blind season 1. Not only did the triangle involve these three, but it also involved Jessica’s soon-to-be fiance Mark Cuevas and LC Chamblin. The triangle came to a dramatic end when Barnett picked Amber over Jessica and LC. Despite Jessica questioning Matt’s decision, the couples continued on with their prospective romances.
The Barnett, Amber, Jessica love triangle was an entertaining one for the time being, but it was nowhere near as enthralling as the unaired love triangle between Matt Thomas, Danielle Drouin, and Rory Newbrough. This romance led to a broken engagement and an open relationship proposal.
Screenrant got to interview Danielle prior to the official stay at home order, and she really opened herself up and allowed us to go deep into her Love is Blind process, her relationship with Rory and Matt, and her friendship with the two men since leaving the series.
Can you tell me more about how you found out about Love is Blind? Were you recruited? Referred? How did the casting process go?
I actually received a message on Instagram. It was a short description and asked if I was interested and could give them a call. I didn’t respond because I was a little skeptical. I was like ‘iis this legit?’ So a couple of hours later, I talked to my sister. She told me the casting directors that she had worked with previously on another show--because my sister was on Second Chances--they contacted her and I think they were asking if she knew anybody to refer and she said ‘oh my sister.’ So my sister called me and told me that ‘I want you to talk to these people that are casting for this show.’ And I said ‘oh I just got a message from them and I didn’t know if it was legit. Let me respond.’ So that’s kind of how the whole process started.
Why were you interested in being on Love is Blind?
I was truly interested in finding someone, and you know, of course, the idea sounded awesome. This seems like a really great way. They’re really breaking down boundaries with this show. I’m not the typical Tinder dater. I never used apps before and I have had a not so good time trying to date. I was giving up to be honest. I had some pretty bad relationships in the past and I wasn’t actively trying to date anymore. I was just going to wait for someone to come into my life and put it in God’s hands at that time. If I find somebody, I find somebody. Then this opportunity came. In my life at that time, I was ready to settle down and I was looking for a companion. I was looking for a partner. And I was like ‘why not?’ This seems so different from anything I’ve ever heard of. Sounds crazy but I’m going to give it a shot.
Can you walk us through your process on Love is Blind? How did you connect with people? Who were you drawn to? Who were some of the people sparking your interest?
So I think for everyone, day one we all had nerves and we didn’t know what was going on. It was all so new to us. We didn’t know what the dating process would be like, because when we get to the facility, we’re just with all the women. All the guys were together and all the women were together. And then Nick and Vanessa (Lachey) come in and kind of explain it all to us a little bit more. So we kind of had an idea of how the dating process was going to go for this day. The first day was pretty hectic because that was the day that we actually got to date all fifteen people. The dates were short. It was like speed dating. I can remember the first time they opened up the doors, and I was walking down that long hallway to the pod. I was at the very last pod all the way down the hall. It was the longest walk of my life. My hands were shaking. I was so nervous. I was like ‘what am I getting myself into?’
I didn’t know what to expect and that first pod date was actually Rory (Newbrough). And the second I heard his voice, like this huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I was like okay this is real, there are guys on the other side who are just as interested. We’re all real people. We’re all nervous, we’re scared. I felt safe at that point. We honestly had an instant connection. We only had a seven minute date, so for the rest of the day, I didn’t find a connection as strong. I did have other strong connections. Throughout the process, each day your dates get longer, you have more dates, and your list gets shorter. So you have less and less people that you date. So throughout this process, I did not think that we were going to connect this fast, but because of how the whole process goes in the facility, we don’t have distractions. We’re not distracting ourselves with anything. I couldn’t even call my family and try to ‘let me tell you, I need your feedback.’
We had to solely depend on ourselves and our own emotions. There was no interference. So when you have so much time just to bond and connect with people, it happens so much faster. And I couldn’t believe how I was developing feelings for Rory so quickly. He was my number one the whole entire time. Rory was my number one, but a few days in, I started to really connect with Matt (Thomas) as well, and my feelings for him got a lot stronger. Now I was going through an experience that I never felt before in my life. I have never had feelings for two men at the same time in my life before. I didn’t even know if it was even possible, but clearly it is possible. I was struggling. I was really struggling. As the experiment got further in, and I had really strong feelings for Rory, and really strong feelings for Matt, I was going through a really turbulent time.
You know both of these men were 100 percent in it for me. They were telling me what our life would be like together. They were each talking about what our lives were going to be like after this experiment was over. What kind of life we could have together. All the beautiful plans we were setting up. I had never gone through that before. I haven’t had two men at the same time telling me that they want to be with me for the rest of their lives, and have a family together. It was hard. The difference between Matt and Rory for me was that they were almost like two different parts of my personality. With Rory I had an instant connection, right. It’s not something that I can’t really explain in the soul. We bonded on a lot of hardships that we went through in our childhood that were very similar, and who we are as individuals. We always want to help other people. We always put people before ourselves. We are both the party planners and we both love this and we both like that. We had a lot in common, and he was the safe choice.
He was somebody that I knew would be a good father and a good provider. He was more of a homebody type. He had a good job that he worked long hours and he already had a house, and he didn’t do a lot of traveling. He was very secure. And Matt was kind of the free spirit that I’m also. No one understands the kind of life that I live because I do a lot of traveling. I’m always traveling for work and for fun. I kind of live life on the seat of my pants to be honest. I never know what I’m going to do and he’s the same way. We both scuba dive, we both have done lots of traveling in several countries and crazy stuff like that. He’s been to India. He’s been to Cuba. He’s been to Costa Rica. He’s done so many things that I had done.
So I was like ‘wow, we’re like really connecting.’ And he was like ‘yeah, it’s not very conventional, but I want to live my life like this.’ And I was like ‘wow, I never heard anybody say that before. That’s how I want to raise children or these are the things I want to do.’ It seemed too perfect. I was like this could be the life that I’ve always wanted. In my mind, it seemed like the partner that I was always looking for on paper.
It’s so hard looking back at it with a new point of vision because so much time has passed. At that time, it just seemed like wow this could be it. It was tough. I was truly going through some turbulent time with that.
Can you go a little more into the pod dating process? How did dating in the pods work?
Day 1, we dated everyone. After that, we had to make a list of who was at our top and it would go all the way down to the bottom. They had an algorithm that matched it up right. So you didn’t 100 percent know who you were going to have dates with the next day, but you had a pretty good idea depending on who you put on the top of your list. So every day the dates got longer. Towards the end of the experiment, we had dates that were three or four hours long, and we had multiple dates a day. We also had the opportunity to make the dates our own. We were able to send gifts over, or we could do special things, send flowers, send food. We could eat the same meal together. We could plan to have lunch and eat the same food.
One time, Rory and I cooked for each other. We both have dietary restrictions, so I made him a vegan apple crisps and he made some vegan mac and cheese. So one of our dates we were having this romantic dinner together between a wall, enjoying the food that we cooked for each other. That was pretty exciting.
We could also do activities, one time, Matt and I did yoga together. We did a whole yoga flow together, just coordinating between breathing and that was pretty special. It was interesting how the--I don’t want to say elimination--but the elimination process made sense. So after the first initial day, we went from 15 to 8, and then I think you lost one person a day that you didn’t see anymore, and it was usually the person at the bottom. It worked out well. We were able to get more time. Towards the end, we were in the pods until late at night. They actually had to extend the time for us. They were like ‘you guys are sure you don’t want to go to bed?’ and we were like ‘no no give us more time. This is our whole life at stake, give us more time.’ We weren’t sleeping. We were like we’ll sleep when we’re dead. We need to find out who our husband is.
At the end, were you dating all seven people or just Rory?
At the end, I was just dating Matt and Rory and I truly didn’t have feelings for anyone else. Of course I made strong bonds and friendships that I still have, but Matt and Rory were the only two that I actually felt like a real connection, romantic connection with that was pretty intense. Like I said, I never knew I could have feelings for two people at the same time. It was rough.
Can you go more in-depth into your relationship with Rory? How long did it take you guys to become engaged?
Like I said, the connection was there from the beginning. I can’t even put my finger on it to be honest, because it was instant. The second I heard his voice, our personalities just meshed. I feel like a lot of the time we weren’t even talking about anything super serious. Towards the end we were, but I feel like we fit together so well that the conversations would just flow. And before you know it we would already be talking for two and a half hours and they would cut our dates. They would be like ‘you guys have 30 seconds,’ and we would be talking until they kicked us out. But gosh, it is so crazy thinking back on it now and reliving all these emotions, because I kind of—I don’t want to say buried it—but it was such an experience for me, and then you know I’m not with Rory or Matt anymore.
We really did have love for each other and I never experienced anything like that so fast. He (Rory) truly did care about me and we were ready to spend the rest of our lives together. That’s crazy to say after only a short time of knowing each other, but that’s how powerful this whole experiment was.
How many days from when you and Rory met did it take for you two to actually become engaged?
It was towards the very end, but I’m not quite sure the specific days because it was so long ago, but it was at the end of the experiment, because I was going through a lot of—Rory was 100 percent aware of what was going on. He knew that I had feelings for Matt. Matt and Rory were also best friends on the other side, on the men’s side. They were best friends and everyone was 100 percent aware. Rory knew that Matt had feelings for me and Rory knew that I had feelings for Matt, and vice-versa. I don’t think any of us knew there was going to be an engagement until the very end.
I didn’t know until the last second when he asked me. I didn’t know what was going to come out of my mouth to be honest. That last date we had, that last conversation reassured me that I was making the right decision.At that time, I believed that I was making the right decision. And I wanted to give it a shot at least. I felt like I would really regret not saying yes because I really wanted it to work.
Can you go more in-depth now with your relationship with Matt?
With Matt, our relationship didn’t blossom until a few days into the experiment when I started to really realize how much we had in common. It was crazy. He was actually my neighbor. We lived across the street from each other for two years. That doesn’t even make sense and we never met. I’m like how could we have been living the same life. We have so much in common. When all of these things factored in, when we started to get to know each other more, we were like we’re the same person. Literally, talking to Matt was like talking to myself. It was like looking in the mirror. And I never met someone who was so similar to me and has the same goals and who had the same crazy ideas.
He had this big charity. I shared with him this big passion for charity as well. I do a lot of charity work and I want to start a foundation of my own. We would bond on all these things. I was like wow like he’s my person. That’s what I felt at that time. I never met anybody who is exactly the same as me. My relationships that I had with Matt and Rory in the pods were so different. They were like two different sides of me, but Matt is also very competitive. He’s a professional boxer and he naturally has a very competitive personality. I think that played a role for him in the whole process, because it was almost like a natural competition. His best friend was technically his competition. I don’t want to say it was like a competition, but natural human instincts.
If you feel like someone is trying to take something that you want. You start to play a little harder. I think that he put all his cards on the table with me and I think that is what was so hard. Like I said, both of these men were offering me the world, but at the end of the experiment, Matt didn’t want to get married. Matt and I had our last date together, and he told me that it was his last day there and he told me that he didn’t feel comfortable getting married this soon. He wanted to experience life with me first, and he said he wanted to go on a trip with me. He said he wanted to go through all the senses together. He wanted to actually hold my hand and tell me he loved me before we were forced into something. Not forced but I guess that’s maybe how he felt.
He didn’t want to rush into anything. He wanted to experience each other before we made such a commitment. He told me that he was leaving that day and he was not proposing to me and he wanted me to do the same. He wanted me to also leave and I told him that I couldn’t do that. I told him that I needed to have my last date with Rory and I needed to talk to him and I couldn’t 100 percent tell him the same things that Matt was telling me because my heart was also still with Rory and I knew I owed it to Rory I knew I owed it to Rory before I made any drastic decisions to leave. This is my future. Fast forward and Rory and I get engaged. Everything felt great and at that time I felt like I made the right decision. I felt so comfortable with my decision and Rory and I met for the first time.
I can’t even tell you how I felt. My whole body was shaking. I was so nervous when they opened the door for the first time and I saw Rory. I was crying. I felt like I was floating to him. We had such a beautiful embrace and we kissed. The whole thing was magical. I think we only had about 15 minutes together but it felt like 2 seconds. We were talking about how we were going to run away. We were like ‘let’s just leave now. Let just run away together.’ It felt right. At that moment everything felt right, but Matt had left. Of course I don’t know this but meanwhile Matt is gone. He found my social media, he found my emails and he started contacting me. Meanwhile, I’m still at the facility but he had sent me some emails and he sent me some messages on Instagram. He liked some very specials that I had that were tied to conversations and memories that we had together in the pods. Kind of like a secret little code.
Flash forward to leaving the facility with Rory. Unfortunately we were cut, so we had time to get to know each other on our own. I spent a couple days with Rory and I saw all these things from Matt. I was starting to feel very overwhelmed, because at first I felt very comfortable but now I'm very confused. Then all of the cast that wasn’t continuing on for the Mexico portion met up together. All of us because we had never seen anyone on the other side. It was kind of our own fun little party to just meet everybody. I knew Matt was going to be there. I walk in holding Rory’s hand and I’m wearing the ring and I see Matt instantly. I had never met him before and my heart sank. It truly sank.
I was just so overcome with emotion. He comes over to me and he goes to shake mine, and he says ‘hey, I’m your friend Matt.’ I pushed his hand away and gave him a huge hug. I was like ‘it’s so nice to meet you.’ And we didn’t talk for the rest of the night. I couldn’t even talk to him because it was just too much for me. At the end of the night, he said goodbye to me and I told him that we needed to talk sometime soon. Rory and I went on our own trip together in Miami just to kind of figure things out. We still had time off work. We were like let’s get to know each other, let’s take the time. Still no distractions.
Meanwhile, Matt had sent me a couple more emails. I knew I still needed to talk to him. After Rory and I got back from Miami, life started to get real. We started to meet each other’s friends and family and we had to go back to work. There were a lot of questions and there were a lot of real life things coming up. He was kind of far away. He had long hours at his job. Our lives were very different. I got nervous and he was like ‘do you think that you should move in?’ I honestly started to become so overwhelmed. I was like is this real? Are we really engaged? Should we be moving this fast? I told him that I needed to sit back from it all.
Inside I was still so conflicted because I had feelings for Matt and Rory. I felt like it wasn’t fair for me to be trying to pursue this future with Rory right now when I still had feelings for Matt. I felt like it was so unfair. It wasn’t fair to Rory, so I told him that I needed time for clarity. I need to just be alone for a while. After just a couple weeks of leaving the facility, we took some time for ourselves.
How long after your breakup with Rory did you decide to pursue things with Matt?
Like I said, he kept messaging me. I was telling him that we definitely need to sit down and talk about things. We just needed to have a conversation in real life. It was probably a couple weeks later and we started talking about everything and we started to create a friendship. After a few of just getting to know each other again. In real life time, we started to see each other. I had really strong feelings for him. At the time, I thought it was the real deal. I even met his family. We spent the holidays together.
We never committed to being boyfriend and girlfriend, because Matt felt a little uneasy about it. For some reason, he doesn’t like labels, which made me very uneasy to be honest, because I just went through this whole thing and I’m committing to you now. I went through so much turmoil and I’m choosing to be with you. I told him that I wanted to be official and he said that he didn’t want to. At the time, I’m like ‘okay understandable. I guess you just want to take time.’ But he was still talking to another woman that he met in Europe. I guess over the summer.
When he found out Rory and I got engaged, he made plans with her to go to Paris. This was when Rory and I were together, he made these plans. A couple weeks into Matt and I talking again, he told me about this. He said, ‘hey, when I found out you and Rory were together, I decided to jump the gun and go visit this girl in Paris that I’m romantically interested in. I was like ‘wow.’ He was like ‘I want to be honest about it.’ And I said ‘okay, but what does this mean?’ He was like ‘well I’m not changing my plans right now. We’ll see what happens.’ And I was like ‘okay,’ but I was a little concerned.
Flash forward and we have been seeing each other for a while. It’s been close to a couple months and our relationship got pretty intense and pretty serious. We were doing everything together, and like I said we spent the holidays with his family. Something didn’t sit right. Something felt so weird. I had the conversation with him again. I was like ‘hey, you never brought up the Paris thing again. Are you still going to Paris?’ He couldn’t even talk to me. He called me over to his house about two days after that, and he basically gave me an ultimatum. He told me that he wanted to continue a relationship with me, but he didn’t want it to have restrictions and that he doesn’t like labels. He still wanted to see other people.
I told him that that wasn’t the relationship I was looking for, and that if he went to Paris, I wasn’t going to be around anymore, because as a woman, I know my worth. I don’t want to wait around until you decide that it’s time to commit. I care about you and want to have a relationship with you, but I’m not looking for that kind of relationship. I was looking for something long term and someone to start a life with. So he went to Paris and we didn’t talk after that for months.
Did the producers ever explain to you why they didn’t show your story?
They didn’t tell us why they weren’t going to show the story, but the day after Rory and I met, they came and sat down with us and told us that we weren’t going to be going to Mexico. They said they were shocked with how many success stories there were for engagements. I don’t think anyone expected so many people to get engaged. They just didn’t have the crew or I guess maybe the funds to follow so many engagements and weddings. They said they had to randomly choose and we went home.
Did you bond with any of the final couples?
Yes, it’s crazy, because not only were we building these relationships with the men but everyone is so close. Everyone who was on the show is so close. We’re all such close friends. We have a big group chat going. We see each other often. Lauren (Speed) and Cameron (Hamilton) actually live down the street from me and I see them at the gym like all the time. It’s crazy. Yeah, we all keep in touch. I talk to Lexie (Skipper) and Giannina (Gibelli) all the time. We’re all close. I just saw a big group of them when we went out about a week and a half ago. Everyone is so great. We really formed friendships for the rest of our lives. On the girl’s side, we had nothing else to do in between but get to know each other. We became like sisters. It was like a sorority. We truly became like sisters. Some of them know things about me that friends I’ve had my whole life don’t even know.
How are things with Rory and Matt now?
After some time… Things were always okay with Rory. He is such a sweet guy. He is so understanding. He is just an all-around amazing human being. We were good. We gave it some time. I think we both needed time to heal but then we started talking again as friends and we’re still really close. He actually only lives ten minutes from me. He actually moved. He changed his whole life. He quit his life and moved closer to the city. So we’re really close and real cool right now. Matt and I are cool. We’re definitely cool, but it took a lot more for me to be cool with him. I was hurt. I was truly hurt. I felt like he was kind of—I don’t want to say leading me on, but he was playing with my emotions. I thought the relationship was going somewhere different than apparently what he had planned. I was truly hurt. We didn’t talk for months, months, months, and months.
Then we sat down and talked it out. He apologized. I accepted his apology. We moved on. Since then, we’re good. We’ll do yoga together. The three of us are all close. We all still talk. Everything is fine. It’s nothing now. It’s all in the past. We’re all adults, but it did take some time. It took some time to heal.
Would you say your experience on Love is Blind was a success? Do you believe love is blind?
I believe it was a success. I believe love is blind. I think it worked a little too good for me. I fell in love with two guys and I didn’t think that was possible. Honestly, through the experiment, it helped me understand myself and what I actually need in a relationship. From that now, I have a boyfriend and we are in the happiest, healthiest relationship that I’ve ever had in my entire life. And I truly believe that it is from what I learned through this whole experience: opening up, being vulnerable, communication,telling your partner your needs, telling your partner what kind of life you want to live.
You should never have expectations on how you feel other people should treat you and should never have expectations on someone else’s behavior. I think all of that was a big eye opening learning lesson for me. Even with the Matt situation, I had expectations and I shouldn’t have had expectations. Things didn’t play out the way that I wanted and I felt so hurt and betrayed but I shouldn’t have had expectations for how I thought it would turn out I guess. I truly love is blind. If anyone went there to the facility, they would probably fall in love.
Is there anything else you want to tell the readers?
Not sure. No one knew the show would have this much success and we had so many beautiful moments in the pods. I wish more of that was shown because it would explain things to viewers a little bit better of how we actually fell in love, but we know that you can only fit so much in ten episodes. It would be easier for people to see how we fell in love if we got to see more of the pod footage.
Love is Blind season 1 is available to stream on Netflix.