Love Is Blind’s Kenny Barnes reveals in an Instagram comment that Kelly’s surprising decision to say no at the altar wasn’t so surprising to him.
In an Instagram comment caught by a fan account after the season finale, Love Is Blind star Kenny Barnes seems to admit that he and his then-fiancée Kelly Chase knew they were going to say no at the altar and they never planned on getting married.
Love Is Blind is Netflix’s most recent home run, a reality TV dating show/experiment that tests to see if love really is blind by having couples go on “dates” without ever having seen each other, ultimately choosing the person you want to marry. Kelly and Kenny weren’t one of the couples viewers saw right off the bat, but once they were introduced, they seemed like a perfect match. The couple was well-matched emotionally but struggled to turn that into a physical connection, which ultimately led to Kelly making the surprising decision to turn down Kenny on their wedding day. Fans were a little shocked when Kelly said no to Kenny during their ceremony, but a recent Instagram comment sheds some light on situation – and it explains why Kenny had such a good “rejected at the altar” speech prepared.
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This past week, Love Is Blind Instagram fan account “Love Is Blind Tea” posted a screenshot of a comment Kenny left (via Instagram) where he wrote that he and Kelly “made an agreement weeks prior to the wedding day that they were not getting married.” The 27-year-old wrote that their emotions “in response to the stress and exhaustion of filming (and of that particular moment) were very much real,” seemingly referring to their reactions at the altar when Kelly said “I don’t.” Kenny says that he and Kelly are “real people who went through a surreal and dynamic experience,” and that even though “the experiment didn’t ‘work’ for us in the sense that we didn’t get married,” he still learned a lot from it. Kenny wrote, “It did work for me in regards to personal development, mental toughness, patience and perseverance” and he says he will “always be proud” of his behavior during his time on the show.
Kenny also used his Instagram comment to address a sound bite that was played after Kelly left him standing at the altar, writing, “for the record, the clip of me saying she’s the woman I’m supposed to be with was recorded in response to a hypothetical question asked/recorded weeks prior to this day.” Fans saw a genuine reaction from Kenny after the ceremony when he was getting frustrated with the producers and cameras, but it looks like there was still a little bit of TV magic and editing sprinkled into that scene. The fact that there was some editing involved to up the drama shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has watched a reality TV show before, but it’s something Kenny clearly wanted to set the record straight about.
It’s interesting that Kenny says he and Kelly decided weeks before the ceremony that they weren’t going to say “I do” considering the couple was only engaged for four weeks prior to their wedding. Does this mean they knew for nearly half of filming that their relationship wasn’t going to end in marriage, and was “weeks” an exaggeration? Unfortunately, fans will probably never know, and while viewers were hoping that Kenny and Kelly could still have a relationship, it was revealed at during the reunion special that Kenny has since moved on and is doing well, so it’s the end of the road for these two. While it wasn’t a complete success, season one of Love Is Blind produced two successful marriages and a couple who are now dating, and we’re already ready for the next season.